REESE  LIBRARY 

OK  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
Class, 


T  II  E 


AFFIDAVIT  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON, 


TAKEN  BY  THE  DEFENDANTS 


IN  THE   SUIT   OF    ROBERT    MAYO   vs.  BLAIR   &  RIVES 


FOR    A    J.I  BEL, 


A  N  A  L  Y-  S  E  D    AND    REFUTE  D. 


BY  ROBERT  MAYO,  M.  D. 

• 

AUTJtOtt  OF  SKETCHES  OP  KTGHT  TEARS  IN   WASHrKOTOV,   &.C.  &.C. 


WASHINGTON  CITY,  D.  C. 

PRINTED    FOR    THE    TLA  INT  IFF. 

1840. 


ADVERTISEMENT  TO  THE  THIRD  EIJl'i 

Holding  it  to  be  an  indisputable  truth  that  every  community  is  more  or  less  interested  in  ua-  ic  i: 

every  individual  member  thereof,  and  more  particularly,  that  ait  questions  affecting  the  character  and  vera 
city  of  high  official  agents  must  be  of  vital  concernment  to  the  \vhole  country,  I  could  not  hesitate  a  moment 
in  making  this  publication,  both  for  the  information  of  this  District,  of  which  I  am  an  humble  constituent,  and 
for  that  of  the  country  at  large,  by  which  GENERAL  JACKSON  has  been  so  signally  honored:.    Moreover,  I 
maintain  that,  as  the  reputation  of  distinguished  functionaries  has  always  been  "justly  viewed  as  public  prop 
erty ;  of  the  most  sacred  character,  any  act  of  self-debasement  on  their  part  should  as  decidedly  arouse  public 
indignation  and  grief,  for  such  disgrace  and  forfeiture  of  its  confidence,  as  a  wanton  and  unfounded  attack 
upon  them  from  any  quarter  should  be  severely  reproved  and  punished.    Nevertheless,  the  humblest  citizen 
may  not,  from  a  just  veneration  for  those  eminent  men  in  general,  dastardly  submit  to  be  trampled  under  font 
by  a  recreant  from  their  ranks,  rather  than  hazard  the  enterprise  cf  his  full  exposure  to  the  merited  reproof  of 
that  Public  which  had  theretofore  but  too  liberally  cherished  and  honored  his  name;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
equally  the  unalienable  birthright  and  the  conventional  duty  of  the  most  insignificant  member  of  the  com 
monwealth  to  stand  up  in  his  own  defence,  and  shed  around  the  moral  influence  of  perhaps  too  rare  an  ex 
ample,  by  resisting  the  unjust  assaults  of  even  the  most  highly-favored  of  his  fellow-citizens;  nor  is  it  less  the 
duty  of  his  immediate  community  and  of  the  country  at  large  to  hear  and  adjudge  the  grievances  of  which  he 
complains. 

No  man  ever  held  the  fame  fcf  ANDREW  JACKSON  at  a  higher  value  than  did  the  undersigned,  at  a  time 
when  the  public  prints  and  every  tongue  were  rife  with  the  praises  of  his  military  achievements— when  hie 
conciliatory  republican  professions  of  political  toleration,  and  the  extermination  of  the  monster  party  spirit. 
were  lauded  by  many  ot  the  best  patriots  of  the  land,  as  the  results  of  a  just  and  enlightened  policy ;  or,  wheu 
his  promises  to  bring"  back  the  ship >of  state  to  its  ancient  tact,  and  to  renew  the  strict  discipline  and  simple* 


economy  of  its  crew  byj,he  operations  of  a  salutary  reform,  were  sincerely  belreved  in  by  multitudes  of  his 

nong  the  many  dupei 
d  with  bad  faith  by  G 

suppression  of  a  statement  of  information  \Ve  were  virtually  commissioned  to  make,  auxiliary  to  the  purpose* 


is  ot  a  salutary  relorm,  were  sincerely  belreveu  in  by  multitudes  01 
deluded  countrymen.    But,  when  I  found  myself  numbered  among  the  many  dupes  of  those  professions  and 
promises  unredeemed— when  I  found  myself  and  others  treated  with  bad  faith  by  GENERAL  JACKSON,  in  the 


of  that  promised  reform— and  finally  perceived  that  all  those  flatteringprofessions  and  joyful  hopes  were  with 
ered  up  by  the  most  selfish  passions  that  contaminate  the  human  breast,  fostered  by  party  intolerance  and 
persecution,  which  commits  robbery,  and  by  party  favoritism  and  corruption,  which  distributes  "  the  spoils,^ 
both  regardless  of  the  good  of  the  public  service,  I  determined  to  dissolve  all  connexion  with  this  new  jaco 
bin  sect,  and  to  vindicate  myself  from  the  imputations  unjustly  thrown  upon  me  on  account,  of  the  error  of 
my  then  position,  into  which  1  will  fearlessly  say,  and  prove,  that  I  was  ENTRAPPED  by  thefair  promises  of 
action  for  the  public  good.  Having  made  some  progress  in  the  performance  of  this  task,  from  motives  oi 
public  duty  &nd  personal  justification,  at  great  inconvenience  and  expense,  I  have  been  assailed  by  the  foul 
est  calumnies,  which  were  probably  intended  to  withdraw  my  attention  from  my  publications,  and  discredit 
them  if  persisted  in,  or,  possibly,  to  drive  me  back  into  the  ranks  of-  that  jacobin  faction  I  proposed  to  e:;  - 
pose.  A  whipped  cur  may  creep  back  into  his  former  kennel,  from  a  fear  of  further  flagellation,  or  from  a 
hope  of  the  favors  basely  awarded  to  a  fawning  executive  pet,  but  they  who  deal  out  these  vile  motives  hav*? 
never  had. reason  to  believe  that  either  fear  or  temptation  can  operate"  upon  rue.  To  resist  and  expose  this 
unholy  alliance  of  a  reckless  faction  of  jacobins  and  gambling  politicians,  a'a  well  as  to  defend  my  personal 
character  against  the  defamation  which  it  is  their  tvnde  to  practise,  I  now  declare  myself  a  volunteer  for  anil 
during  the  war. 

It  was  in  part  from  the  various  considerations  above  recited,  and  others  which  will  appear  in  the  sequel, 
that  I  resolved  to  make  this  publication ;  which,  being  too  voluminous  for  a  newspaper  communication,  1  wa* 
compelled  to  throw  into  the  pamphlet  firm  or  abandon  it  altogether.  To'this  latter  alternative  I  could  not 
be  reconciled,  even  by  the  obstacle  of  inconvenient  expense;  for.  however  mortifying  it  is  to  be  visited  with 
calumny,  and  to  grapple  with  it  under  any  circumstances,  it.  would  bo  an  infinitely  greater  evil  quietly  to  let 
it  remain  for  a  single  day  without  repelling  it.  Had  I  the  pecuniary  ability,  therefore,  not  only  for  the  per 
sonal  interest  involved  to  myself,  my  friends,  and  acquaintance,  but  fur  that  of  the  whole  community,  in  re 
.lation  to  the  affiant,  I  would' most  gladly  place  a  copy  of  this  exposition  in  the  hands  of  every  citizen  of  this 
vast  republic,  sorely  aggrieved  as  it  has  been  in  many  respects  by  a  misplaced  confidence  in  the  same  p'er- 
sonage,  who  has  so  "far  Vom  prom  Sued  the  dignity  of  his  late  official  stations,  to  become  the  calumniator  of  an 
humble  citizen. 

I  cannot,  then,  easily  believe  that  the  Public  will  prove  to  be  indifferent  spectators  on  this  affair  from  a 
mistaken'  supposition  that  it  is  "purely  personal,1'  which  it  surely  is  not ;  for,  by  so  doing,  may  they  not  justly 
be  considered  as  giving  countenance  and  immunity  to  Executive  abuses  and  oppression,  which  no  man,  prob 
ably,  could  dare  to  resist  hereafter,  at  the  certain  consequence  of  having  his  reputation  destroyed  by  corrupt 
Executive  calumny,  whose  refutation  shall  pass  unheeded  ! 

I  might,  then,  forebode  that,  if  this  be  not  thefirst  instance  of  such  a  resistance  and  exposure,  it  will  surely  be 
THE  LAST,  upon  the  same  principle  that  governed  the  officers  in  the  customs  at  New  York,  and  in  the  Treas 
ury  Department  here,  who  carefully  concealed  the  defalcations  of  Swartwout,  under  the  various  pretences 
that  it  was  not  their  duty  to  reveal  or  expose  them ;  that  their  duty  was  to  the  collector  and  not  to  the  United 
States,  &c.;  but  in  fact  because  they  were  slaves  to  their  own  cupidity,  or  to  their  bread,  to  their  fears,  or  to 
th^ir  false  notions  of  prudence  and  caution !  Such  is  the  prostration  to  which  the  SPIRIT  of  subordinate 
officers  has  been  REDUCED  by  the  IRON  WILL  and  DOMINATION  of  ANDREW  JACKSON  ! !  May  I  die  under  ten 
thousand  tortures  before  the  insidious  doubt  should  ever  insinuate  itself  into  my  breast  whether  I  too  wouh;- 
cot  resign  mysolf  a  victim  to  such  a  policy ! 

ROBERT  MAYO 


TO    THE    PUBLIC. 


More  than  nine  years  ago  (that  is,  early  in  December,  1830)  I  addressed  to  General 
Jackson,  then  President  of  the  United  States,  a  letter,  (see  Appendix  A,)  "to  be  used  in 
any  way  he  might  deem  proper,"  giving  him  a  detailed  statement  of  General  Houston's 
plans  of  organizing  an  expedition  against  the  Mexican  province  of  Texas,  accompanied 
with  a  copy  of  his  scheme  of  secret  cryptographical  correspondence,  and  referring  to  wit 
nesses. 

In  the  fall  of  1836,  that  original  letter  and  cipher  were  handed  to  me  BY  THE  PHESI- 
DEXT'S  MESSENGER,  in  the  routine  of  sundry  other  documents  of  mine  returned  to  me 
through  the  same  messenger,  in  pursuance,  as  I  had  every  reason  to  suppose,  of  a  stand 
ing  request  from  me  to  Major  Donelson,  the  private  secretary  of  the  President,  to  have  all 
my  communications,  letters,  &c.,  hunted  up*  and  returned  to  me,  as  soon  as  convenient, 
after  all  contemplated  action  had  upon  them — excepting  any  that  might  be  retained  by  the 
President,  of  course.  See  Note  [a.]  in  the  Supplement. 

Such  was  the  purport  of  my  request,  which  was  made-'in  consequence  of  the  inability 
of  the  private  secretary  to  lay  his  hands  upon  such  documents,  in  frequent  instances,  when 
called  for  by  me  in  person ;  and,  as  an  evidence  that  it  was  so  understood  by  Major  Don 
elson,  I  did  receive  at  my  lodgings  many  returns  of  documents  in  that  way  by  the  hands 
of  the  same  messenger,  which  I  now  have  in  my  possession,  but  are  too  voluminous  to  ex 
hibit  here,  though  they  shall  make  their  appearance  in  another  publication. 

Th«re  was  also  a  request  and  a  promise  to  the  same  effect  in  behalf  of  a  friend,  then  in 
Virginia,  for  the  return  of  his  documents,  whose  letters  to  me  will  not  only  establish  the 
fact,  but  show  that  more  than  twelve  months  elapsed  before  his  papers  were  found  ;  and  I 
believe  it  was  the  practice  of  General  Jackson,  or  his  private  secretary,  to  return  all  com 
munications  with  the  evidences  of  action  endorsed  upon  them,  or  accompanying  them, 
when  there  was  no  reason  assigned  for  withholding  them ;  and,  more  particularly  about 
the  close  of  his  administration,  1  have  reason  to  believe  this  practice  was  very  general,  and 
that  probably  the  letter  returned  to  Mr.  Van  Buren  about  that  time,  wherein  the  writer 
had  urged  on  the  President  his  objections  to  the  appointment  of  Samuel  Swartwout  as  col 
lector  of  the  customs  at  New  York,  is  an  eminent  instance.  The  Richmond  Enquirer  is 
the  organ  through  which  the  public  was  informed  of  the  restoration  of  that  letter  :  perhaps 


*  This  function  of  hunting  up  documents  and  letters  called  for  was  certainly  sometimes  intrusted  to  the 
Pre*ident's  messenger,  as  I  occasionally  understood  from  Major  Donelson  himself,  when  he  would  promise 
rne  to  have  such  as  he  could  not  readily  lay  hands  on  for  me  searched  for  by  the  messenger  and  sent  to  me. 
And  I  believe  many  other  persons  are  acquainted  with  the  fact,  or  at  least  are  of  the  impr.  ssion,  that  the 
President's  messenger  was  the  principal  conserTatw  of  his  files.  [Such  is  the  case,  in  some  deeree,  with 
messengers  in  several  of  the  Departments.]  Whether  he  discharged  that  function  faithfully,  fell  s~hort  of,  or 
exceeded  his  duty,  the  President  and  his  private  secretary  ought  to  be  the  best  judges.  Whenever  he  brought 
a  package  to  me,  1  questioned  not  the  authority  by  which  he  brought  it ;  and  as  they  were  in  every  instance 
my  own,  accompanied  only  with  the  President's  action  upon  them,  whether  satisfactory  or  not  to  my 
views  and  wishes,  I  considered  the  matter,  so  far,  as  final,  and  was  then  left  to  my  discretion  and  choice 
what  use  I  should  again  make  of  them ;  and,  as  an  evidence  of  this,  in  some  instances  I  would  recommit  the 
same  document  to  the  President,  with  a  request  to  reconsider  his  decision :  which  fact  can  be  substantiated 
at  a  proper  time  by  the  documents  themselves.  I  will  barely  make  the  suggestion  here,  that  General  Jack 
son,  except  for  the  malignant  temperament  of  his  mind,  would  in  all  probability  have  supposed  that  Major 
Donelson,  in  returnfhg  me  my  papers,  inadvertently  sent  the  copy  also  of  his  letter  to  Fukon,  filed  as  it  was 
in  the  same  package  with  my  letter  on  Houston's  conspiracy  as  evidence  of  his  action  upon  it ;  or,  indeed, 
if  it  were  evidence  of  satisfactory  action,  he  never  would  have  considered  it  worth  a  rush  to  make  a  clamor 
about  its  publication,  much  less  have  made  a  labored  argument  of  falsehoods  to  give  color  to  a  most  improb 
able  supposition  ;  which  seems  rather  to  suppose  that  he  stands  self-condemneu  as  to  the  hypocritical  sub 
terfuge  of  the  letter  to  Fulton,  and  is  himself  the  author  of  the  libel  on  mo,  as  a  revenge  for  the  publication 
of  that  letter,  with  a  commentary  unmasking  the  duplicity  of  its  object 


the  editor  of  that  paper  knows  something  more  of  the  practice  and  policy  of  returning  or 
retaining  communications.  In  addition  to  these  instances,  and  the  rna*s  of  such  docu 
ments  so  returned  to  me  and  now  in  my  possession,  it  is  probable  I  shall  hereafter  be  en 
abled  to  cite  many  others,  to  the  same  effect,  as  demonstrating  the  practice. 

The  envelope  of  this  original  letter,  so  returned  to  me,  bore  thb  endorsation  by  the  Pres 
ident  viz:  "Dr.  Mayo — on  the  contemplated  invasion  of  Texas — private  and  confidential* — 
a  letter  to  be  written  (confidential)  to  the  Secretary  of  the  T.  of  Arkansas,  with  copy  of 
confidential  letter  to  Wm.  Fulton,  Esq.,  Secretary -of  the  T.  of  Florida."     Within  that 
envelope  was  my  original  letter  and  the  cipher  above  mentioned,  with  a  single  other  doc 
ument  only,  purporting  to  be  a  copy  of  a  letter  to  Mr.  Fulton,  dated  the  10th  December, 
1830,  showing  the  action  of  the  President  upon  my  aforesaid  letter;  which  copy  to  Ful 
ton  bore  this  endorsement,  viz:   "(Copy)  confidential — Wm.   Fulton,   Sec.  of  the  T.  oi 
Florida — private  and  confidential;"  and,  on  the  inside,  this  copy  is  headed   "STRICTLY 
COXFIDKXTIAL".     From  these  confused  endorsements  on  these  two  documents,  (that  is, 
on  the  general  envelope,   and  or\  the  copy  of  the  letter  to  Fulton,)  it  was,  to  my  mind,  a 
matter  of  doubt  whether  any  such  letter  had  been  sent  to  the  Secretary  of  Florida,  as  there 
was  no  such  Secretary  of  Florida  there  named;  and  no  such  letter  has,  in  fact,  ever  been 
since  alleged  to  have  been  sent  to  the  Secretary  of  Florida:  and,  on  the  same  account,  it 
was  equally  worthy  of  doubt  whether  one  had  ever  been  sent  to  the  Secretary  of  Arkansas, 
whose  address  was  not  clearly  designated ;  or,  had  such  letters  been  sent,  they  were  prob 
ably  falsely  directed — otherwise,  these  endorsements  would  have  been  correctly  made  at 
first,  or  have  been  corrected  afterwards.     It  appeared  to  me,  therefore,  upon  examining 
this  package,  not  only  that  it  presented  a  singular  confusion,  but  that  it  was  possibly  handed 
to  me  to  show  the  action,  whether  sham  or  real,  that  had  been  taken  upon  it;  there  being 
probably  no  reason  longer  to  keep  it  secret,  as  most  of  the  facts  had  now  become  history, 
and  upon  which  there  might  be  no. objection  to  the  injunction  of  secrecy  being  removed; 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  it  seemed  quite  as  probable  that  the  fact  of  the  copy  of  the  letter 
to  Fulton  being  in  the  package  was  inadvertently  overlooked.     But,  under  all  the  cir 
cumstances,  as  the  case  presented  itself  to  my  mind,  I  concluded  that,  by  whatever  mo 
tives  this  package  was  handed  to  me  as  the  communicator  'of  its  principal  contents  to 
the  President,  they  were  perfectly  immaterial  to  the  course  I  deemed  it  proper  for  me  to 
pursue  in  regard  to  it,  since  (perceiving  the  series  of  covert  falsehoods  reciprocally  embra 
ced  in,  and  deducible  from,  both  this  copy  to  Fulton  and  the  volume  of  diplomatic  corres 
pondence  between  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  the  Mexican  minister  on  the 
same  subject)  I  held  myself  bound,  by  a  high  paramount  obligation  to  my  country  and  to 
the  world,  to  expose  the  whole  matter,   and  at  the  eame  time  to  vindicate  myself  against 
the  discredit  indirectly  thrown  upon  my  statement  of  Houston's  designs  by  the  allegations 
of  General  Jackson  in  his  letter  to  Fulton,  in  which  he  says:    "I  am  induced  to  believe, 
and  hope,  that  the  information  I  have  received  is  erroneous ;   that  NO  movements  have 
been  made,  nor  have  any  FACTS  been  established,  which  would  justify  the  adoption  of  of 
ficial  proceedings  against  individuals  implicated."     I,  therefore,  unhesitatingly  made  it 
public  in  various  ways,  and  exhibited  a  fac-simile  of  the  said  letter  in  my  recent  publica 
tion  of  "Eight  Years  in  Washington" — which  exposure,  I  now  solemnly  aver,  I  would 
have,  made  had  it  been  the  last  act  of  my  life  ! 

In  consequence  of  some  or  all  of  these  modes  of  publication,  Messrs.  Bkir  &  Rives,  in 
several  issues  of  the  Globe  newspaper,  charged  me,  by  various  modes  of  expression,  with 
having  purloined  the  said  copy  of  General  Jackson's  letter  to  Mr.  Fulton;  for  which  out 
rage  I  instituted  a  suit  against  them,  in  the  circuit  court  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  for 
libel.  Preparatory  to  the  trial  of  this  suit  at  the  next  November  term  of  the  court,  the  defend 
ants  have  caused  General  Jackson's  AFFIDAVIT  to  be  taken  in  justification  of  their  charge. 
Upon  being  informed  of  the  existence  of  that  affidavit  on  record  in  the  clerk's  office,  at  the 
present  session  of  the  court  I  immediately  ordered  a  copy,  and,  after  perusing  its  extraor 
dinary  contents,  resolved  that  I  would  not  submit  to  the  foul  calumny  cast  upon  me  a  mo 
ment  longer  than  could  possibly  be  avoided,  but  that  I  would  lay  the  slanderous  document 
immediately  before  the  public  in  this  form,  with  a  brief  analysis  and  refutation  of  it,  lest  any 
man,  knowing  of  its  existence,  should  pass  from'this  stage  of  being  before  I  should  otherwise 
have  it  in  my  power  to  correct  any  supposition  or  belief  that  it  was  possible  those  imputa- 


*  The  character  of  "  private  and  confidential"  was  assumed  for  this  letter  by  General  Jackson  himsrlf, 
and  for  motives  best  known  to  himself,  without  my  request  or  knowledge,  but  expressly  "  to  be  used  in  any 
way  he  might  deem  proper." 


terms  xvere  i rue;  and  also  that  Genrrnl  Jackson,  especially,  bhouhl  have  the  earliest  op= 
port  unity,  of  seeing  his  maRgriant  falsehoods  laid  bare  to  the.  world  ! 

I  have  ample  reason  to  believe  that  there  exists  an  abundance  of  facts  in  the  possession 
of  many  of  the  most  respectable  citizens  of  this  country,  which,  if  they  do  not  prove  that 
General  Jackson  was  habitually  addicted  to  the  perversion  of  truth,  will. at  least  prove  that 
he  is  unceremonious  in  the  perpetration  of  FALSEHOOD  when  he  thinks  it  would  serve  his 
purposes  of  ambition  or  malice  better  than  the  truth.  And  J  now  make  a  solemn  appeal 
to  all  such  person*,  as  an  act  of  justice  to  the  public  in  general,  and  to  the  cause  of  truth, 
to  furnish  me  with  such  facts  as  they  may  have  in  their  possession,  or  can  refer  me  to, 
between  this  time  and  the  trial  of  the  suit  at  the  next  November  term  of  the  court. 

The  following  is  the  AFFIDAVIT  in  answer  to  six  interrogatories,  of  which  my  business 
will  be,  for  the  most  part,  with  the  deponent's  answer  to  the  sixth.  In  attempting  to  show 
how  I  might  have  purloined  the  copy  of  his  letter  to  Fulton,  the  deponent  actually  show, 
upon  every  rational  principle  and  practice  in  official  or  social  intercourse,  how  it  was 
morally  impossible  that  I  could  have  done  the  DEED  ;  and  in  urging,  against  reason  and 
fact,  his  made  up  recital  and  forced  inference,  he  shows  himself  to  be  a  prejudiced  WIT 
TS  ESS,  and.  a  partial  PARTISAN  of  the  defendants,  as  will  presently  he  demonstrated  to  the 
satisfaction  OF  EVERT  INTELLIGENT  AND  IMPARTIAL  PERSON. 

INTERROGATORIES. 

?-,i  *r  interrogatory.— ft\d  you  ever  writ?  and  send  to  Wm.  Fulton,  Secretary  of  the  Territory  of  Arkansas, 
-A  letter  of  which  the  following  is  a  copy'!  [See  Appendix  B,  for  the  letter  alluded  to.] 

Second  interrogatory.— When  did  you  write  sucn  a  letter1? 

Third  interrogator^.—  Did  Gov.  Fulton  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  such  a  letter? 

Fourth  interrogatory.— Did  you  take  a  copy  of  the  letter  when  you  wrote  it,  and  what  did  you  do  with  it? 

Piflh  interrogatory.— Did  yo'u  ever  give  or  deliver  a  copy  of  the  letter  you  wrote  Governor  Fulton  to  Mr, 
Robert  Mayo? 

Sixth,  in ierrogato ry.— What  eventually  lie-came  of  the  copy?  and.  if  you  please,  state  whatever  else  you 
may  know  respecting  the  above  letter,  and  how  it  came  into  the  possession  of  Robert  Mayo. 

fnterrogato-ry  to  be  answered  by  A.  J.  Donelson.  Esq.  : 

Read  the  first  of  the  interrogatories  contained  in  the  paper  now  h.inded  to  yoti,  to  which  is  annexed  the 
copy  of  a  letter  addressed  by  Gen  Andrew  Jackson,  late  President  of  the  United  States,  to  Wm.  Fulton,  Esq., 
dated  Washington,  December  10,  1450;  and  Male  whether  you  have  any  recollection  of  the  original  of  that 
letter,  and  whether  you  have  any  knowledge  of  the  manner  in  which  it  came  into  the  possession  of  Robert 
.Mayo,  of  Washington  city? 
The  deposition  of  Gen-  Andrew  Jackson,  late  President  of  the  United  States,  in  the  case  of  Robert  Mayo 

rs.  F.  P.  Blair  and  J.  C.  Rives,  for  libel,  now  pending  in  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia  for 

Washington  county,  Washington  city,  District  of  Columbia,  who,  being  duly  sworn,  deposeth  and  saith  that 

he  resides  at  the  Hermitage,  in  the  county  i  f  Davidson  and  Slate  of  Tennessee,  about  seven  hundred  and 

fifty  miles  from  the  city  of  Washington— 

To  the  first  interrogatory  he  answerpih  and  saith,  he  did  write  and  send  to  William  Fulton,  then  Secretary 
of  the  Territory  of  Arkansas,  a  letter,  of  which  the  annexed  to  the  interrogatory  is  a  true  copy. 

To  the  second  interrogatory  he  answereth  and  saiih,  that  he  wrote  that  letter  on  the  day  and  at  the  place  it 
purports  to  be  \yrivteri  -  "that  'is  to  say,  ut  Washington  city,  Decembf  r  the  10th,  1830. 

To  the  third  interrogatory  he  answereth  and  saith,  that  Gov.  Fulton  did  acknowledge  the  rec  ipt  of  that 
letter,  and  with  it  made  a  report  of  his  proceedings  in  pursuance  of  the  request  made  in  my  letter ;  which  let 
ter  and  report  was  placed  on  file,  wiih  the  copy  of  my  confidential  letter  to  him  of  date  the  10th  of  December, 
1830,  and  deposited  in  rny  confidential  bureau  in  my  office,  from  whence  it  was  purloined. 

To  the  fourth  interrogatory  he  answereth  anil  smh,  that  he  did  take  a  copy  of  that  letter  when  he  wrote  it, 
and  placed  it  in  his  confidential  bureau  in  his  office. 

To  the  fifth  interrogatory  he  answereth  and  saith,  that  he  never  did  deliver  a  copy  of  that  letter  he  wrote 
to  Governo.  Fulton  to  Robert  Mayo,  or  to  any  other  person. 

To  the  sixth  interrogatory  he  answereth  and  saith,  [1]  that  the  aforesaid  letter  was  purloined  from  his  of 
fice,  [2]  together  with  the  report  of  Governor  Fulton  made  to  him  of  [3]  his  investigation  of  General  Houston's 
f4]  meditated  invasion  of  Texas,  [5]  which  all  proved  fallacious,  as  appeared  from  Governor  Fulton's  re 
port,  [6]  which  report  was  placed  with  the  copy  of  the  confidential  letter  of  the  10th  of  December,  1830,  m 
my  confidential  drawer  in  my  office,  from  whence  it  was  purloined,  as  he  believes,  by  some  one,  [7]  and  he 
believes  by  Robert  Mayo,  the  plaintiff  in  the  cause  now  pending.  For  this  belief  affiant  begs  leave  to  state 
his  [8]  reasons:  The  plaintiff,  Robert  Mayo,  had  written  him  two  T9]  confidential  letters,  making  serious 
charges  against  many  of  the  clerks  employed  by  the  Government  in  Washington,  in  its  various  Departments. 
These  confidential  letters  were  [10]  placed  in'my  confidential  drawer  in  my  office,  where  [11]  the  copy  of 
my  letter  to  Governor  Fulton,  then  Secretary  of  the  Territory  of  Arkansas,  with  his  [12]  reply  and  report,  were 
deposited.  After  [13]  receiving  these  confidential  letters  Irom  Robert  Mayo,  Vhe  plaintiff,  this  deponent  in 
formed  him  that  he  could  [14]  not,  nor  would  not,  take  any  measures  against  those  clerks  on  his  confidential 
complaints  ;  that  he  nmst  furnish  xleponent  with  specific  [15]  charges,  to  which  these  clerks  would  lie  call 
ed  upon  to  respond  ;  that  [10]  all  men  were  presumed  to  be  innocent  until  guilt  was  established  ;  that  [17] 
every  man  charged  with  crime,  or  acts  that  would  affect  his  moral  character,  ought  to  be  heard  in  his  own 
defence;  and  that  he  would  [18]  not  act  upon  confidential  and  secret  information  against  any  one.  The 
plaintiff,  Robert,  -Mayo,  in  a  few  [19]  days  thereafter  presented  this  deponent-with  a  long  [20]  list  of  charges 
m  writing  asrainst  a  great  many  clerks  in  the  different  Departments,  which  was  forthwith  [21]  referred  to 
the  heads  of  Departments  to  be  fully  investigated,  upon  which  [22]  investigation  Robert  Mayo  failed  [23] 
to  establish  hifl  charges  made  against  anyone  individual  charged.  Soon  t24]  after  this  full  [25]  invest!- 

tation,  Robert  Mayo  applied  [26]  to  this  deponent  to  withdraw  these  public  charges;  deponent  told  him  he 
27]  might,  as  the  charges  being  made  by  h-im  and  not  established,  would,  now  being  on  mv  public  files,  de 
stroy  [28]  him  as  a  man  of  truth  forever;  and  I  referred  him  to  my  private  secretary,  Major  A  J.  Donelson.  to  get 
them.  This  deponent  waclnfonned  [29J  by  Robert  M  nyo  and  Major  Donelson  that  thr*w  jniblk  charges  against 


trie  ci'erks  were  riven  up  to  him.     A  lew  [3"]  days  alter  th«>  before-mention'  ;-  £•'•>; 

ert  Mayo,  applied  [31]  to  this  deponent,  and  requested  that  he,  deponent,  would  return  to  him  his  two  con.5; 
derail  letters,  containing -charges  against  several  clerks.    These  letters,  as  before  recited,  [10]  had  beer 
placed  in  the  confidential  bureau,  where  [11]  was  also  deposited  the  copy  of  thr  confidential  letter  of  the 
10th  of  December,  1830,  to  Governor  Fultorf.    The  drawer  being  very  [32]  full,  this  deponent  h:id  to  take  out 
many  [33]  papers  to  find  those  requested  by.  Robert  Mayo  to  be  returned,  and  lay  them  on  his  table,  beside 
[~34]  which  Robert  Mayo  was  .sitting..  This  deponent  having  found  the  two  letters,  [&>]  returned  them  f 
Robert  Mayo,  and  told  him  for  the  .future  never  to  »nako  charges  against  any  one  that  1^  ••'•^\A  not  '-stab- 
Msh.    Durinc  [36J  this  search,  deponent  believes,  Robert  Mayo  seeing  [37]  this  letter  marked  •'  strictly  con 
fidential,"  purloined  [38]  it,  as  it  never  could  be  found,  although  diligent  search  had  been  made  for  it  through 
all  this  deponent's  papers,  and  in  the.Secreta.ry  of  State  and  War  Department;  at  tlK>  '.ime  the  ex-President 
John  Q.  Adams,  in  Congress,  made  the  call  upon  the  Secretary  of  State  for  this  correspondence;  nor  was  this 
letter  ever  heard  of  after,  until  it  was  produced  in  the  House  of  Representatives  and  read  by  Mr.  J.  Q.  Adan/ 
in  his  place  as  a  member.  This  deponent  further  states  that  no  [39]  person  was  permitted  to  look  into  th  is  con 
fidemial  drawer  but  [40]  his  private  secretary,  Andw.  J.  Donelson,  and  Andrew  Jackson,  jr.,  when  there ;  \vh< ; 
both  have  stated  to  this  deponent  that  they,  or  either  of  them,  never  delivered  or  cave  [41]  a  copy  of  the  said 
letter,  marked  strictly  confidential,  dated  "the  10th  day  of  December,  1830,  and  addressed  to  William  Fulton, 
or  to  any  other  persons ;  and  this  affiant  knows  [42]  .of  no  one  who  could  have  had  [43]  access  to  his  private 
drawer  in  his  office,  or  purloined  this  letter,  but  [44]  Robert  Mayo,  the  plaintiff,  in  whose  possession  this  pur 
Joined  letter  was  found,  [45]  and  acknowledged  [4t>]  by  him  to  have  handed  to  ex-Pretident  John  Q.  Adams> 
who  used  this  said  letter,  marked  "strictly  confidential,"  in  his  speech  in  Congress.    That  this  letter  was 
purloined  by  some  [47]  person,  this  deponent  doth  verily  believe  ;  and  from  the  whole  [48-]  circumstance*,  as 
get  forth  and  stated,  the  purloined  letter  beine  [49]  found  in  the  possession  of  Piobert  Mayo;  and  marked  [i 
strictly  confidential ;  and  instead  [51]  of  handing  this  letter  to  this  affiant,  which  he  [52]  would  and  ought  to 
have  done  had  [53]  it  been  handed  to  him  by  any  one,  he,  as  it  appears,  handed  it  to  the  ex-President,  Adams 
to  be  used  by  him  in  Congress.    This  deponent  does  [54]  believe  that  said  letter  was  purloined  [55]  by  Rob 
ert  Mayo,  the  plaintiff  in  this  suit. 
This  deponent  not  beinc  further  interrogated,  eaith  not. 

ANDREW  JACKSON 

The  deposition  of  A.  J.  Donelson,  late  private  secretary  of  President  Jackson,  who  being  duly  sworn,  de 

poseth  and  saith  that  he  resides  in  the  county  of  Davidson  and  State  of  Tennessee,  about  seven  hundred  and 

fifty  milee  from  Washington  city— 

To  the  interrogatory  addressed  to  him,  this  deponent  answereth  and  saith,  that  he  has  a  clear  recollection 
of  the  letter  referred  to,  and  of  the  circumstances  under  which  it  was  written  by  the  President.  The  copy  o) 
the  letter  signed  by  the  President,  which  was  forwarded  to  Mr.  Fulton,  was  in  the  hand-writing  of  this  depo 
nent,  as  he  believes ;  and  this  deponent  also  believes  that  another  duplicate  copy  was  taken  to  the  War  De 
partment  by  one  of  the  young  gentlemen  who  had  charge  of  the  confidential  papers  of  the  Secretary  of  War 
at  that  time.  This  deponent  well  remembers  the  answer  made  to  this  letter  by  Mr.  Fulton,  which  was  filec1 
[56]  with  the  original  letter  of  the  PrWident. 

Robert  Mayo,  the  plaintiff  in  this  cause,  was  never  furnished  by  deponent  wi*  h  this  original  lett«r,  nor  with 
A  copy  of  it,  nor  was  any  other  individual ;  and  this  deponent  1  "ing  no  further  interrogated,  saith  net. 

A.  J.  DONELSON 

True  copy. 

Test:  WM    BRENT,  Clerk. 

Whoever  has  any  acquaintance  with  the  many  gross  injuries  and  annoyances  I  ha\£ 
received  from  a  vile  Jacobin  Faction  here,  since  I  discovered  their  insidious  revolutionary 
designs,  and  abjured  their  associations,  can  form  some  estimate  of  the  extreme  felicita 
tions  that  now  thrill  my  bosom  at  having  a  &a APPLE,  as  it  were,  arm  to  arm  and  face' 
to  face,  with  the  GREAT  tr-REsroifsiBLE,  to  vindicate  myself  in  this  new  issue  thus 
wantonly  and  unexpectedly  thrust  upon  me — as  it  will,  while  it  enables  me  to  demolish 
the  prime  source  of  those  grievous  wrongs,  necessarily  have  no  small  bearing  upon  the 
future  development  and  proper  understanding  of  the  COURSE  I  have  pursued  in  the  official 
skirmishes  it  has  been  my  fortune  to  encounter  with  most  of  the  Departments  during  thr 
administratien  of  that  notorious  personage,  and  indirectly  with  himself,  over  their  shoul 
ders,  since  I  have  been  a  resident  of  Washington  ;  in  justification  of  which  I  had  under- 
taken  to  publish  a  book,  now  progressing  at  the  press,  at  an  expense  and  loss  of  time  ex 
tremely  inconvenient,  and  aggravating  to  the  embarrassments  of  every  kind  in  which  those 
injuries  and  annoyances  have  involved  me.  In  the  present  hasty  exposition,  therefore^ 
which  I  feel  myself  so  unexpectedly  called  .upon  to  make,  I  shall  neither  have  time  nor  in 
clination  to  be  very  fastidious  or  select  in  my  expressions,  but  shall  allow  them  to  take  the. 
spontaneous  tone  of  a  fervent  indignation  at  this  outrageous  attempt  of  an  ex-President 
of  the  United  States  to  sustain  a  GUOSS  LIBEL  by  raising  additional  calumnies  against  me.  • 
In  the  analysis  and  refutation  I  now  propose  to  make  of  the  foregoing  AFFIDAVIT,  I  shall 
endeavor,  nevertheless,  for  the  sake  of  perspicuity,  to  bring  together  the  material  allega 
tions  and  inferences  of  the  witness  under  three  several  heads  or  SECTIONS,  according  to 
their  affinities,  quoting  his  words  as  they  apply  to  the  subjects  of  those  several  head?,  and 
marking  those  quotations  numerically,  for  a  convenient  reference  to  them,  as  correspond 
ingly  marked  by  me  in  brackets,  in  the  affidavit,  viz  : 

1.  I  shall  throw  into  the  First  Section,- the  charge,  or  'belief,'  of  purloining,  together 
ivith  the  attempt  to  connect  with  it  a  vindication,  by  the  deponent,  of  the  disposal  he  made 
of  the  testimony  he  had  in  hig  possession,  of  Houston's  conspiracy. 

2.  In  the  Second  Section,  I  shall  more  particularly  notice  the  *  reasons'  of  the  depo 
nent  for  his  charge,  or  '  belief,'  of  purloining,  a-s  they  relate  to  his  alleged  disposa 


tiw  conjidtntial  letters  >nfiking  charges  ri£c:m;..t,  tr.Linj  -c/f  //,•.-,  J/A- 
says  I  had'  written  to  him. 

Tfiird  -Section,  I  ah  all  iiulicc  the  further  rcuwni*,  or  auxiliaries  1o  1hc.  reason.', 


jfthe  deponent  for  kis  charge,  or  'belief,'  of  purloining,  as  /  hey  relate  to  a  list  of  public 
Charges,  t'.'hich  lie  says  I  presented  to  hint  after  he  had  refuted  to  ad  upon  the  secret  ones  , 
the  object  of  all  which  nmbling  of  the  deponent  into  the  ijeld  of  fiction  is,  (to  cull  embel 
lishments  for  his  scanty,  meager,  mutilated  facts,  barely  recognisable  in  their  fictitious  ar 
ray)  manifestly  to  argue  or  beguile  the  COURT,  the  JURY,  and  the  PUBLIC,  (with  the  im 
posing  assistance  of  his  inflated  name,)  into  the  ABSTMU)  "  BELIEF"  that  one  who  could  act 
the  infamous  part  he  has  falsely  imputed  to  me,  would  have  purloin^  the  copy  of  his  letter 
to  Fulton  without  opportunity. 

I.  In  the  first  place,  to  the  sixth  interrogatory  tlir  d^p'/nom,  "  auswuelli  and  saith  [11  that  the  aforesaid 
-  "--'- 


eply  [12 

wiys,  "  was  placed  \vith  the  copy  of  the  conljdentia!  lelter  of  the  10th  December,  1830km  iny  confidential 
in  my  office." 

The  public  will  presently  perceive,  from  a'  comparison  of  the  deponent's  own  statements, 
(if  his  testimony  maybe  pleaded  in  refutation  of  himself,  )  how  impossible  it  was  'that  the 
aforesaid  [1]  copy'  of  his  letter  to  Fulton  could  have  been  purloined  at  all;  and  how  frivo 
lous  are  the  grounds  of  his  '  belief  [7]  that  I  purloined  it,  even  were  it  possible  that  the 
deed  could  have  been  done  by  any  one.  [b.]  Passing  any  minute  examination  of  these  points, 
then,  for  the  present,  till  they  come  up  with  their  connectives  in  the  next  SECTION,  I  shall 
only  advert  here  to  the  contrast  between  this  hardy  assertion  of  General  Jackson  towards 
me,  and  the  .more  manly  course  of  Mr.  Monroe  towards  Mr.  Lowrie,  in  regard  to  the  cele 
brated  No-party  letter  of  General  Jackson  in  November,  1816,  to  Mr.  Monroe,  and  Mr. 
Monroe's  answer,  which  was'  in  Mr.  Lowrie's  possession  in  February,  1824.  In  the  cor 
respondence  between  General  Jackson  and  Mr.  Monroe  on  that  subject,  in  1824,  which  1 
have  before  me,  (including  the  correspondence  of  1816,)  as  published  in  the  National  In- 
'.elligencer  in  May,  1824,  General  Jackson  says,  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Monroe  of  the  22d 
February,  "If  you  know  the  dale  of  your  letter  to  me,  that  Mr.  Lowrie  is  possessed  of  t  1 
will  thank  you  to  advise  me/'  In  Mr.  Monroe's  answer  to  General  Jackson,  of  the  same 
date,  he  says,  "I  have  no  knowlcdg-e  of  the  date  of  the  letter  to  which  Mr.  Lowrie  refers, 
nor  can  I  imagine  in  what  mariner  any  letter  of  mine  to  you,  or  other  friend,  should  hare 
gotten  info  the  possession  of  (tin;  oite."  Again,  he  says,  "I  have  no  recollection  of  giving 
any  copy  of  niy  views  on  the  subject  to  any  one.  The  copy  in  question,  if  correct,  must 
have  been  resorted  to  for  unfriendly  purposes,  and  in  breach  of  confidence,  und  has  prob 
ably  been  purloined.""  Again  :  "  If  fay  confidence  given  "at  the  time  relcrred  to  has  been 
m  any  manner  abused,  OR  the  letter  been  purloined,  that  is  an  incident  which  must  dis 
honor  the  part  if  guilty  of  such  acts."  Agreed,  if  it  were  so  ;  but  Mr.  Monroe  does  not  even 
intimate  '  a  belief'  that  Mr.  Lowrie  purloined  that  letter,  (nor  did  he;)  much  less  go  jrifo 
elaborate  fabrications  —  or  an  enumeration  of  true  and  false  facts  artfully  mixed  up,  to  givr, 
a  coloring  to  such  an  inference.'  Let  it  here  be  noted,  however,  that  I  do  not  lay  much 
emphasis  upon  the  correctness  of  the  above  extracts,  as  it  is  well  known  that  the  original 
letters  referred  to  underwent  considerable  mutilations  (1  am  credibly  informed  nixty  in 
number)  by  General  Jackson's  accredited  and  confidential  agent  in  their  publication,  Major 
Eaton,  who  furnished  the  Philadelphia  Observer  with  one  copy  of  this  mutilated  corres 
pondence,  and  the  National  Intelligencer  with  another  copy?  each  materially  differing  from 
the  other,  and  both  varying  from  the  originals;  thus  falsified,  of  course,  with  General  Jack 
son's  approbation,  and  with  the  intention  of  imposing  upon  the  public.  But  both  those 
mutilated  copies  making  their  appearance  on  the  same  day  in  the  Philadelphia  and  Wash 
ington  papers,  their  discrepancies  were  not  noticed  by  the  MUTILATOHS  before  it  was  too 
late  to  force  them  io  agree,  nor  before  General  Armstrong  remonstrated  \\ii\\  General  Jack- 
son  upon  an  exceptionable  passage  he  saw  in  the  Philadelphia  copy,  which  first  met  his 
eye,  and  which  General  Jackson  denied,  because  that  passage  did  not  api>ear  in  the  Wash 
ington  copy  which  he  examined  in  the  Intelligencer. 

The  deponent  IB  not  content  with  declaring  his;  belief  that  I  purloined  the  copy  of  hi* 
confidential  letter  to  Pulton,  but  charges  me  with  the  like  depredation  upon  "the  report. 
[2]  of  Governor  Fulton,"  "  which  report,"  [6]  (elsewhere  called  in  his  affidavit  "reply 
and  report,"  [8])  he  declares,  as  a  reason  for  his  belief,  "was  placed  with  the  copy  of  his 
confidential  letter  of  the  10th  December,  1830,  in  his  confidential  drawer,  in  his  office." 
This  is  the  first  of  the  multiplicity  of  circumstances,  artfully  devised  and  dovetailed  to- 


aether,  in  order  to  give  some  plausibility  to  the  most  improbable  and  moral!}  imprfssibte 
supposition,  first,  that  the  copy  of  hi.s  letter  to  Fulton  was  purloined  ;  then,  that  the  report 
of  .Fulton  was  purloined,  together  with  that  copy,  because  they  were  filed  together;  and 
that  I  purloined  them  both,  because  the  copy  of  the  letter  to  Fulton  is  in  my  possession, 
as  subsequently  stated  [45]  in  the  -affidavit.  Everybody  knows  the  fallacies  to  which  ill- 
constructed  syllogisms  are  incident.  Let  it  suffice  for  the  present  to  say,  that  there  was 
not  any  such  document  as  a  reply  or  report  of  nny  sort  in  company  with  the  copy  of  the 
letter  to  Fulton,  when  the  package  that  contained  that  copy  was  handed  to  me  by  the 
President's  messenger — the  mode,  as  I  have  frequently  said,-  by  which  that  copy  came 
into  my  possession ;  nor  have  1  ever  seen  either  reply  or  report,  as  separate  documents  or 
a  common  document ;  1ior  have  I  ever  had  any  satisfactory  reason  to  believe,  if  that  report 
or  reply  ever  existed,  that  it  was  made  and. received  ix  GOOD  FAITH  to  the  two  countries 
whose  interest  and  honor  were  at  stake !  Had  such  a  report  ever  come  into  my  hands,  and 
that  in  the  abovementioned  package,  as  did  the  copy  of  the  letter  addressed  to  "  William 
Fulton,  Esq.,  Secretary  of  the  T.  of  Florida,'  (not  Arkansas,)  I  should  probably  have 
seen  further  evidence  to  confirm  my  exposition  in  a  former  publication,  demonstrating 
the  hypocritical  Executive  connivance  at  the.  conspiracy  of  Houston,  for  which  that  secret 
correspondence,  sham  or  real,  was  evidently  intended  to  perform  the  double  alternative 
offices,  to  s CHE Eif  and  to  UKNY. 

But  what   "investigation"  [3]  could  Mr.  Fulton  or  any  other  person  liavc  made  of  a 
matter  "strictly  confidential,"  seeing  that  he  could  not  exhibit  his  authority  to  make  su.cb 
investigation  1     Even  in  a  matter  of  ordinary   misdemeanor,  so  rigid  an  injunction  of 
secrecy  would  have  been  an  insuperable  obstacle  iofiny  investigation*    How  impracticable^ 
then,  must  he  have  found  it,  among  parties  who  were  bound  together  by  an  OATH  of  secrecy 
and  fidelity,  in  an  enterprise  «/*TREASOX  1  Is  it  not,  in  fact,  a  perfect  burlesque  upon  termsy 
to  say  that  this  mere  Secretary  of  a  Territory  ( which  the  President  mistook  for  Florida  in 
stead  of  Arkansas)  made  an  investigation  under  such  circumstances]     But,  suppose  Ful 
ton  did  hazard  a  formal  exculpatory  report,  without  the  moral  or  physical  possibility  of 
having  made  the  investigation  alleged,  as  the  district  attorneys  afterwards  did  frail du  lenity 
exculpate  well  known  offenders,  when  this  and  other  modes  of  manifesting  the  Executive- 
bias,  and  giving  a  lead  to  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  this  enterprise  throughout  the  West, 
had  emboldened  them  to  do  so  in  the  face  of  the  universally  known  fact  of  military  prepa 
rations  progressing  before  their  eyes,  for  that  enterprise — were  not  the   then  transpiring 
and  subsequent  facts  that  were  urged  upon  General  Jackson  from  all  quarters,  sufficient  to1 
have  demanded  from  him  (were  he  disposed  to  do  his  duty)  a  general  proclamation,  or  at 
least  a  more  general  and  unrestricted  inquiry  than  that  sham  measure  which  was  locked  up 
in  Mr.  Fulton's  breast?     Surely,  yes  would  be  the  universal  answer;  for  the  public  has 
too  fresh  a  recollection  of  the  reiterated  proclamations  of  the  present  executive  incumbent f 
arising  probably  from  a  different  estimate  of  the  parties  injured,  in  the  parallel  case  of  the 
Canada  frontier,  resulting  in  prosecutions,    condemnation?,  and  punishment  of  the   of 
fenders;  and  they  cunnot  have  forgotten  that  in  the  case  of  Burr,  Mr.  Jefferson   sent  a 
bona  fid '  agent  of  observation  through  the  West,  untrammelled  with  absolute  secrecy f 
whose  object  was  generally  known ;  who  was  empowered  not  only   to  investigate  freely, 
but  to  dissuade;  and  therefore  was  efficient — and  that  Mr.  Jefferson  not  only  issued  proc 
lamation,  but  made  repeated  communications  to  Congress  on  the  subject.     But  here  I 
might  well  have  asked,  in  the  first  place,  what  "meditated  [4]  invasion"  was  this,  which 
the  deponent  so  slightly  alluded  to  but  once  1     Was  it  that  of  which  I   gave  him  a  most 
circumstantial  statement  in  1830,  from  Houston's  own  disclosures,  and  in  which  I  referred 
to  seveial  witnesses  1  none  of  which  circumstances  does  he  deign  to  mention  in  his  affi 
davit,  much  less  docs  it  anywhere  appear  that  he  ever  called  upon  a  single  one  of  those 
witnesses,  or  even  upon  Houston  himself,  who  was  several  times,  pending  the  execution  of 
that  enterprise,  on  visits  to  his  distinguished  patron  and  friend,  the  deponent !     How, 
then,  can  he  with  truth  pronounce  in  his   affidavit  that  this  "meditated  invasion  ALT, 
PROVED  FALLACIOUS,"  [5]  when  in  fact  he  had,  a*s  I  believe,  studiously  avoided   every 
proper  mode  of  causing  it  to  be  investigated  1      Why  did  he  not  also  give  a  brief  statement, 
from  his  wonderful  memory,  of  the  contents  of  that  report  1     I  have  no  doubt  he  would 
have  done  so,  did  it  ever  exist,  and  he  had  supposed  it  would  be  as  satisfactory  to  the 
public  as  he  pronounces •  it  was  to  him!     Indeed,  it  Mirpasseih  my  comprehension  thai 
even  General  Jackson  should  have  the  hardihood  now  to  say,  in  the  face  of  history,  that 
the  statement  of  Houston's  enterprise,  made  too  on  the  testimony  of  several  credible  wit 
nesses,  was  ALL  proved  FALLACIOUS  by  the  report  of  a  single  individual,  so  circumstanced 


tha)  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  have  made  a  competent  investigation,  and  v.hith  report 
he  had  never  thought  proper  to  refer  to  in  any  manner  before,  not  even  in  thotc  times 
when  he  was  so  straightened  in  his  correspondence  with  the  Mexican  Minister  for  "  rea 
sons'*  to  justify  or  to  excuse  his  obdurate  incredulity  in  tho  matters  feet  forth.  I  might  well 
retort  upon  him  here,  as  also  at  the  conclusion  of  this,  my  refutation  of  his  allidavit,  and 
say  that  such  a  declaration  is  sufficient,  alone,  "  to  destroy  him  as  a  man  cf  truth  and 
sincerity  forever  hereafter,"  DID  THAT  NOW  WAIT  TO  B>;  DOKE  ! 

II.  Tho  deponent  goes  on  to  say—"  For  this  belief  [that  Robert  Mayo  purloined  the  copy  of  his  confidential 
'tier  to  Fulton, '  together  with  the  report'  of  said  Fulton,]  affiant  begs  leave  to  state  his  [8]  reasons,  to  \\  it : 
The  plaintiff,  Robert  IVluyo."  says  he,  "  had  written  him  two  [9]  confidential  letters,  making  serious  char- 


e  snys)  "  This  deponent  further  states,  that  no  \2ff]pers 
drawtr  Lut  [4U]  his  private  secretary,  Andrew  J .  Donelson,  and  Andrew  Jackson,  jr.,"  who  "  both  have  suited 
to  this  deponent  that  they,  or  either  of  them,  never  deliver*  d  or  gave  [41]  a  copy  i,f  the  said  letter  marked 
'strictly  confidential/  dated  the  10th  day  of  December,  1830,  and  addressed  to  William  Fulton,  [to  Robert 
Mayo,  ha  probably  meant  to  say,]  or  to  any  other  person  ;  and  this  affiant  knows  [42]  cf  no  one  who  could 
have  had  [43]  access  to.hit  private  drawer  in  his  office,  or  purloined  this  letter,  but  [44]  Robert  Mayo,  in 
whose  j>  t,<e&sion  this  purloined  letter  was  found,  [45]  and  acknowledged  [46]  by  him  to  have  handed  to  ex- 
President  John  Q.  Adams." 

"  .After  [13]  receiving  these  confidential  letters  from  Robert  Mayo,"  says  he,  "  this  deponent  informed  him 
that  he  could  not,  [14]  nor  would  not,  lake  any  measures  against  those  clerks  on  his  confidential  compla  nts  ; 
that  he  rnvst  furnish  deponent  with  [lf>]  specific  charges,  to  which  those  clerks  would  be  called  upon  to  re 
spond  ;  that  [15]  all  men  were  presumed  to  be  innocent  until  guilt  was  established ;  that  [17]  every  man 
charged  with  crime,  or  acts  that  would  affect  his  moral  character,  ought  to  be  heard  in  his  own  defence  ;  and 
that  he  would  [18]  not  act  upon  confidential  or  secret  information  against  any  one."  Again,  to  this  matter, 
l»psays:  ''A  few  days  [30]  after  the  before-mentioned  occurrence,  [alluding  to  a  fictitious  occurrence  de 
vised  and  brought  in  between  the  alleged  reception  and  return  of  these  fictitious  letters;  which  fabricated 
occurrence  will  be  discussed  in  the  next  SECTION,]  the  plaintiff,  Robert  Mayo,  applied  [31]  to  this  deponent, 
to  return  to  him  his  two  confidential  letters,  containing  charges  against  several  clerks.'-'  "  These  letteis,"  IIP 
repeats,  "  as  before  recited,  [10]  had  been  placed  in  the  confidential  bureau,  where  [11]  was  also  deposited 
the  confidential  letter  of  the  10th  December,  1830,  to  Governor  Fulton.  Ihe  drawer  being  -eery  [32]/W/,;i 
says  he,  "  this  deponent  iiad  to  take  out  -many  [33]  papers  to  find  those  requested  by  Robert  Mayo  to  be  n  - 
.turned,  and  lay  them  on  the  table  beside  [34]  which  Robert  Mayo  was  sitting.  This  deponent,"  he  contin 
ues,  "  having  found  the  two  1'Hters,  [35]  returned  them  to  Robert  Mayo,  and  told  him  never  to  make  charges 
against  any  one  that  he  could  not  establish.  During  [36]  this  search,"  says  he?  "  deponent  believe  s  Robert, 
31«yo,  seeing  [37]  this  letter  marked  '  STRICTLY  CONFIDENTIAL,'  purloined  it,  as  it  never  could  be  found,"  &c. 

I  should  think  it  would  seem  passing  strange  to  the  minds  of  most  men,  how  minute 
General  Jackson  professes  to  be  in  his  recollection  of  the  most  circumstantial  details,  after 
a  lapse  of  many  years,  and  that,  too,  without  a  document  to  assist  his  memory  ;  while  I 
confess  that,  with  a  tolerably  retentive  memory  of  my  own,  I  should  yet  be  a  little  at  a  loss 
to  recollect  with  accuracy  some  of  the  circumstances  of  quite  an  adverse  state  of  the  facts, 
without  the  aid  of  the  mass  of  documents  I  have  in  my  possession,  to  refresh  and  confirm 
my  recollection  ef  them.  Without  those  documents,  and  in  the  absence  of  my  daily  GIJGW- 
J.\G  KNOWLEDGE,  fur  several  years  past,  of  General  Jackson's  UNFORTUNATE  POIBLK,  I 
should,  perhaps,  be  almost  induced  to  doubt  the  validity  of  my  own  recollections  in  contra 
diction  of  such  a  tissue  of  peremptory  asseverations  he  has  woven  into  this  affidavit. 

It  has  been  seen  how  positively  he  asserts  that  the  copy  of  his  letter  to  Fulton  was 
placed,  with  Fulton's  reply  and  report,  in  his  confidential  drawer,  (that  is,  "filed"  [50] 
with  it,  as  Major  Donelson  expresses  it,)  and  that  the  copy  of  the  letter,  together  with  the  re 
port,  were  both  purloined,  as  he  believed,  by  Robert  Mayo;  and  now  we  see,  he  "further 
Ktates  that  NO  [39]  person  was  permitted  to  look  into  this  confidential  drawer  BUT  [40]  his 
private  secretary,  Andrew  J.  Donelson,  and  Andrew  Jackson,  jr."  Yet,  again,  in  another 
place,  he  says  '•  and  this  affiant  [42]  knows  of  no  ONE  who  could  have  had  [43]  ACCESS  to 
this  confidential  drawer  in  his  office,  of  purloined  this  letter,  but  [44]  Robert  Mayo."  IN'ow, 
every  sane  and  ingenuous  mind  must  be  at  a  loss  to  conceive  how  I  could  have  hud  acccfs 
to  this  confidential  drawer,  when  no  one  was  permitted  to  took  into  it  but  the  two  person*, 
mentioned  !  What,  then,  can  anyone  imagine,  was  the  nature  of  the  access  pretended  to 
be  set  up  for  me,  in  Ihe  face  of  this  unqualified  interdiction  1  It  will  be  in  vain  to  attempt 
to  make  it  out  from  his  affidavit,  if  it  be  not  in  that  part  of  it  where  he  fabricates  a  tale  of 
his  making,  "  a  [30]  search"  in  this  drawer,  in  my  presence,  (for  certain  alleged  'two  con 
fidential  [9]  letters'  of  mine,  to  return  them  to  me,  while  he  would  have  me  to  be  sitting 
beside  the  table  on  which,  his  confidential  drawer  where  they  were  deposited  being  very 
full,  he  had  to  lay  many  papers  ,•}  and  says,  that  "  during  this  search,  deponent  believes 
Robert  Mayo,  seeing  [37]  this  letter  [meaning  his  letter  to  Fulton]  marked  '  STIUCTLT  CON 
FIDENTIAL,'  purloined  it,"  &c.  Now,  passing  by  the  question  off  act  t  as  to  two  confidential 
letter?,  for  due  consideration  in  its  proper  routine,  let  it  be  here  supposed  that  such  a  table 
scene  ever  did  exi.st;  I  would  then  ask  every  man  who  has  any  acquaintance  with  the  Iran?- 


10 

lions  of  business  at  a  desk  or  table,  while  another  is  sitting  by,  what  kind  of  access  it  i.=v 
xvhereby  that  other  could  purloin  his  papers  before  his  face,  or  would  date  hazard  such  an 
enterprise  ?     Docs  not  the  supposition  bear  absurdity  in  every  aspect  of  it  1     \Vhat  would 
not  be  the  state  of  daily  insecurity  of  the  documents  in  the  public  offices  generally,  and  of 
every  man's  private  papers,  in  the  transaction  of  business  with  our  fellow-citizens  ?     In 
deed,  such  a  far-fetched  supposition,  to  dandle  a  string  of  falsehoods  and  absurd  reason 
ing  upon,  could  hardly  have  been  hazarded  to  tantalize  the  veriest  dupes  in  the  world  with 
ul,  not  even  by  General  Jackson  himself,  had  he  not  already  been  emboldened  (by  the  oft- 
repeated  and  wonderful  instances  of  public  infatuation,  in  sustaining  his  outrageous  acU. 
and  declarations  on    more  important  occasions,)  to  dare  say  or  do  any  thing  that  hi:, 
ambition  or  malignity  might  prompt  him  to,  however  absurd  the  one,  or  ruinous  the  othei 
to  his  country's  weal !     Such  a  supposition  is  sufficient  at  once  to  challenge  and  to  defy 
both  the  audacity  of  a  pickpocket,  and  the  skill  of  the  most  consummate  adept  in  the  jug 
gler's  art !     Nay,  it  it?  too  preposterous  to  enlist  the  credulity  even  of  the  proselytes  of  the 
new  Jacobin  school  of  moral  depravity  sprung  up  under  his  count  PTIXG  FATIIOXAGI, 
much  less  of  any  one  decent  citizen  who  has  a  personal  respect  for  that  sacred  remnant  of 
the  bankrupt   American   stock  of  honor  and  good  faith,   national  and  individual,  with 
which  the  Jackson  KUA  has  played  such  wild  and  destructive  havoc !    ' 

It  may  be  worth  while  here  to  enter  into  a  little  calculation,  from  which  I  apprehend  a 
inost  conclusive  argument  ad  absurdum  must  follow.  The  deponent  says,  that  after  re 
ceiving  these  confidential  letters  from  me,  he  told  me  he  would  not  take  measures  against 
<"hose  clerks  upon  my  secret  complaints;  that  I  must  furnish  him  with  sjiccijic  charges ;  thai 
"in  a  few  days  thereafter  I  presented  him  with  u  long  list  of  charges,  in  writing,  against;* 
i  ,reat  many  clerks  in  the  different  Departments,''  which,  he  says,  "  were,  forthwith  referred  to 
*he  heads  of  Departments  to  be  fully  investigated;  "  and  that  "  soon  after  this  full  investiga 
tion,  I  applied  to  withdraw  these  public  charges."  And  again,  that  "a  few  days  after  that  oc 
currence,  I  requested  him  to  return  me  the  two  confidential  letters,  which  he  had  placed  in 
his  confidential  drawer,  where  the  copy  of  his  letter  to  Mr.  Fulton,  together  with  Fulton's 
reply  and  report,  had  been  deposited;  and  that,  in  looking  into  his  drawer  for  those  two 
letters,  "he  had  to  take  out  many  papers,  and  lay  them  on  the  table  beside  which  I  was 
witting,''  [which,  of  course, ^supposes  that  these  letters  had  already  gotten  nearly  to  the  bot 
tom  of  the  muss  of  hi»  confidential  papers.]  He  also  says  thut  1,  seeing  the  letter  to  Ful 
ton  marked' 'strictly  confidential, '  purloined  it ;  [and,  of  course,  that  letter  was  among  those 
taken  out,  and  necessarily  was  nearer  the  top  of  the  mass  than  those  two  confidential  let 
ters  of  recent  date.]  Now  I  shall  not  trouble  the  reader  with  any  comment  upon  the  ab- 
'  urditv  of  so  much  work  being  alleged  to  have  been  done  in  rapid  succession  "  in  a  few 
days" — for  that  is  the  substitute  the  deponent  makes  for  all  dates,  months,'  and  years  that 
had  been  transpiring;  but  I  will  call  his  attention  to  the  absurdity  of  representing  those 
two  letters  said  to  be  of  recent  date,  as  being  already  covered  over  by  a  mass  of  other  con 
fidential  documents,  among  which  the  letter  to  Fulton  (which  was  probably  several  year« 
"Id,  according  to  the  date  of  the  private  secretary's  letter  in  behalf  of  the  President  to  Mr 
De  Krafft,  which  probably  fixes  the  year  General  Jackson  would  be  speaking  of)  was  nearer 
Vo  the  top  of  the  drawer.  It  is  not  for  me  to  conjecture  how  such  extraordinary  circum 
stances  could  have  happened;  it  was  incumbent  on  the  witness  to  explain  them,  since  he 
relies  upon  this  table  scene  alone  to  show  how  I  might  have  done  what  he  labors  so  haid  to 
induce  others  to  believe.  If  he  had  really  taken  pains  to  file  his  papers  at  all  in  classes,  at 
he  pretends  to  have  filed  Fulton's  reply  with  the  original,  why  could  he  not  have  laid  hands 
on  those  of  recent  date,  without  tumbling  his  papers,  pell-mell,  old  and  new,  on  the  table. 
Ao  find  those  of  recent  date  at  the  bottom  ?  But,  when  he  alleged  that  I  saw  this  letter  marked 
[37]  *  strictly  confidential,'  and  therefore  purloined  it  before  his  face,  he  overreached  himself, 
;n  the  malignity  of  his  zeal  to  convict  me  of  a  disgraceful'act,  by  the  assertion  of  what  he 
•-f'uld  not  know — based,  too,  upon  what  did  not  exist ;  for,  in  the  first  place,  who  will  not 
perceive  that  this  statement  discredits  itself,  when  he  considers  how  impossible  it  is  that 
the  affiant  could  know  that  1  saw  this  letter  was  marked  'strictly  confidential;' when, 
too,  he^is  not  even  certain  it  was  among  those  he  had  laid  on  the  table  1  And  yet  what  will 
every  one  say  of  the  audacity  of  this  device,  when,  in  the  next  place,  they  are  informed 
that  the  letter  in  fad  is  not  so  marked  on  the  outside,  but  is  so  headed  within  the  folds  of 
it !  But  even  were  it  so  marked  externally,  and  I  did  see  it  so  marked,  yet  might  I  not  ask'', 
what  motive  could  I  have  had  to  select  that  letter  from  a  mass  of  others  similarly  marked, 
•irio  doubt,  as  we  arc  told  they  were  ail  of  the  same  confidential  character?  For  could  I,  ex 
by  some  preternatural  gift  oi'  intuition,  have  been  able  to  pitch  upon  that  particulai 


11 

"i  the  ext&tcncc  or  the  content  t>  of  which,  according  to  General  Jackson's  own  a,hc>v 
ing,    I   coald  have  had  no   previous  knowledge — nor  did  the  endorsement   upon   it  in 
timate  any  interest  that  I  could  possibly  have  in— it  being  addressed  to  '  William  Fulton, 
Secretary  of  the  T.  of  Florida,'  whom  I  knew  not,  and  there  being,  in  i'act,  no  such 
p. !     And  yet,  to  borrow   a  little  more  coloring  of  plausibility  from   another  fiction 
or  two  of  his  mind,  he  fays,  in  a  disingenuous  malignant,  and  perverted  phraseology,  prei; 
nant  with  virtual  falsehood,  that  "in  my  possets  ion  this  purloined  letter  was  [45]  found,'1 
and  that  I  acknowledged,  [46]  having  handed  it  to  Mr.  Adams,  whereas  there  was  neither 
Jin  ding  nor  ackwnpleaging,  in  the  sense  attempted  to  be  communicated  by  the  use  and  re 
iteration  [49]  of  those  scandalizing  terms,  as  they  are  commonly  understood  under  such 
circumstances.     On  the  contrary,  I  had  made  it  a  voluntary  and  special  act  of  ray  own  to 
exhibit  the  copy  to  several   gentlemen  shortly  after  receiving  it,  before  I  showed  it  to  Mr, 
Adams,  whom  I  authorized  to  make  any  use  of  it  that  he  should  think  proper,  informing 
him  that  I  intended  to  publish  a  fac  simile  of  it,  and  therefore  could  not  let  it  go  out 
of  my  possession,  but  furnished  him  with  a  copy.     Now,  where  is  the  finding  and  the 
acknowledging,  as  if  by  compulsion,  or  process  of  cross-examination,  or  any  other  pro 
cess  than  my  own  voluntary  act,  of  free  choice  arid  self-advisement  ?     Ay,  it  was  my  pride 
to  hold  fast  to  it,  and  to  proclaim  it  to  the  world,  had  it  been  the  last  act  of  my  life — as  an 
indisputable  evidence  of  t^  President  of  the   United  States  descending  from  the  high  re 
sponsikilities  of  his  lofty  station  to  play  second  fiddle  to  a  conspirator  against  the  peace 
and  territorial  integrity  of  a  neighboring,  friendly  >  sister  republic;  making  himseH 
particeps  eriminis  in  the  systematic  treason  of  a  sworn  band  of  land  pirates,  in  the  cow 
ardly  act  of  despoiling  the  domains  of  a  weaker  Power,  rent  and  bowed  down  with  interne/' 
froiibleSf  while  the  mimics  of  that  lawless  band,  who  unwittingly  followed  their  example  on 
a  more  powerful  frontier,  weie  (upon  the  same  cowardly  principle,  which  served  in  the  place 
of  justice)  not  merely  left  to  their  fate,  but  prosecuted  and  punished,  not  as  a  sacrifice  to  the 
•spirit  of  equal  justice  in  behalf  of  the  shorn  lamb,  but  as  a  propitiation  to  the  God  of  War, 
that  gave  a  weak  and  time-serving  Executive  affright  in  the  emblem  of  a  rampant  lion 
[t  was  for  this  exposure  that  I  have  given  offence  to  the  immaculate  parti/  ,•  that  is  the 
grievance  which  the  deponent,  his  apologists,  and  his  colleagues  have  against  me — not  tha< 
they  believe  I  ever  did  or  could  have  perpetrated  the  deed  imputed;  and  I  doubt  riot  Gene 
ral  Jacks jn  would  have  gone  the-  length  to  say  he  saw  me  take  it,  if  that  would  not  havr 
impugned  the  idea  of  purloining ;  but,  thank  God,  I  am  too  well  fortified  ibr  him  or  his  con 
federates  to  succeed  in  their  unhallowed  conspiracy  against  me,  or  to  cover  their  own  sham< 
by  such  a  clamor.     Indeed,  1   need  not  say  to  any  discerning  mind  that  the  entire  drift, 
of  the  studied  and  reiterated  scandalizing  phraseology  of  the  whole  affidavit  obviously  \$ 
to  defame  "  the  plaintiff  in  the  suit."     It  would  also  be  superfluous  for  me  to  declare,  as  ? 
nevertheless  solemnly  do,  that  1  have  no  recollection  of  being  present  at  any  time  whatever 
when  General  Jackson  was  examining  his  confidential  bureau,  or  that  he  had  such,  unlesn 
there  be  an  exception  to  this, 'in  a  particular  instance,  when  he  invited  me  to  his  chamber  to 
examine  certain  document%(whidS  he  took  from  a  large  trunk,  not  a  bureau  or  table  drawer) 
in  relation  (o  his  invasion  of  the  Spanish  territory  of  Florida  during  Mr.  Monroe's  admin 
istration,  and  which  examination  I  was  invited  to  make,  with  the  view  to  establish  a  charg<- 
of  falsehood  he  alleged  against  Mr.  Monroe ;  but  having  taken  no  steps  in  the  matter,  myself, 
after  examining  the  documents  exhibited  to  me  by  General  Jackson,  I  was  astonished  to 
perceive  that  the  same   thing  was  attempted  some  time  afterwards,  by  a  communication 
from  Samuel  Gwin,  Esq.,  the  personal  and  intimate  friend  of  General  Jackson,  which 
communication  was  published  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  shortly  after  Gwin  had  left  a 
clerkship  in  the  Post  Office  Department  here,  to  officiate  in  a  more  lucrative  appointment 
in  the  Land  Office,  as  register  or  receiver -in   Mississippi.     The  asperities  of  the  original 
design  were  much  mitigated,  however,  in  that  conimunicaion,  as  to  the  positive  induc 
tions  of  falsehood  ;  bnl  it  bore  all  the  other  internal  evidences  of  its  origin  in  the  indica 
tions  of  the  then  tenant  of  the  President's  mansion.     I  waive  any  particular  notice  here, 
of  the  palpable  discrepancies  or  incongruities  between  the  deponent's  declaration  of  'belief 
that  I  purloined  the  copy  of  his  letter  to  Fulton,  together  with  Fulton's  report,  the  subse 
quent  coupling  of  a  reply  of  Fulton  with  the  report,  and  his  afterwards,  throughout  flu 
affidavit,  characterizing  the  purloining  as  being  confined  to  the  copy  of  the  letter  to  Ful 
ton,  by  ever  afterwards  speaking  of  it  singly. 

It  has  been  seen  that,  in  order  to  find  me  in  his  mind's  eye,  and  to  depict  me  in  h, 
affidavit,  as  being  present  beside  the  table  while  he  was  making  this  search  in  his  confi 
dential  drawer,  the  deponent  states  that  "the  plaintiff,  Robert  Mayo,  had  written  him  two 
[9]  confidential  letters,  making  serious  charges  against  many  clerks  employed  by  the  Go> 


12 

eminent  in  Washington,  in  its  various  departments;  that  these  letters  were  [10J  placed 
in  hi«  confidential  drawer  in  his  office,  where  the  confidential  letter  to  Governor  Fulton, 
then  Secretary  of  Arkansas,  with  his  reply  [12]  and  report,  were  deposited."    He  then  says, 
that  "after  [13]  receiving  these  confidential  letters  from  Robert  Mayo,  the  plain tilV,  this 
deponent  informed  him  that  he  could  [14]  not,  nor  would  not,  take  any  measures  against 
those  clerks  on  his  confidential  complaints  ;  that  he  must  furnish  deponent  with  specific 
[15]  charges,  to  which  these  clerks  would  be  called  upon  to  re.spond" — alleging  "  that  all 
[16]  men  are  presumed  to  be  innocent  until  guilt  is  established ;"   "  that  every  [17]  man 
charged  with  crime,  or  acts  that  would  afleet  his  moral  character,  ought  to  be  heard  in  hih 
own  defence;  and  that  he  w.>uld  [18]  nut  act  upon  confidential  and  secret  information 
against  any  one."     He  also  says  that,  "  a  few  [30]  days  after"  a  certain  alleged  occurrence 
presently  to  be  noted,  "the  plaintiff,  Robert  Mayo,  applied  [31]  to  him,  and  requested  that 
he,  deponent,  would  return  to  him  his  two  confidential  letters."  "These  letters,"  says  he, 
"  as  before  recited,  [10]  had  been  placed  in  the  confidential  bureau,  where  [11]  was  also  de 
posited  the  copy  of  the  confidential  letter  of  the  10th  December,  1830,  to  Governor  Ful 
ton."  He  continues :  "  the  drawer  being  very  [32]  full,  this  deponent  had  to  take  out  many 
[33]  papers  to  find  those  requested  by  Robert  Mayo  to  be  returned  to  him,  and  lay  them 
on  the  table  beside  [34]  which  Robert  Mayo  was  sitting;"  and  adds,    "this  deponent 
having  found  the  two  letters,  [35]  returned  them  to  Robert  Mayo,  and  told  him  for  the 
future  never  to  make  charges  against  any  one  that  he  could  not  establish ;"  and,  finally, 
we  are  enabled  to  appreciate  the  object  of  this  smooth  tale,  when  he  says,   "during  [36] 
this  search,  deponent  believes  Robert  Mayo,   SKEIXO   [37]    this  letter  marked   'strict'}/ 
confidential,'  purloined  it,"  &c.     Now,   taking  in  their  order  these  allegations  so  artfully 
devised  and  strung  together,  I  solemnly  aver  that  I  never  wrote.  General  Jackson  a  confi 
dential  letter,  in  any  capacity,  in  my  life — neither  so  expressed,  nor  so  implied ;  but  always 
expressed,  or  implied  from  their  purport,  to  be  disposed  of  as  he  should  think  proper.     I 
have  many  reasons  against  the  doctrine  of  secrecy,  against  the  inculcation  of  secrecy,  and 
never  took  an  oath  of  secrecy  on  any  account.     These  mysterious  devices  I  view  in  no 
better  light  than  cloaks  and  guards  to  conceal  and  protect  conspirators  and  bandits  in  the  exe 
cution  of  their  lawless  and  predatory  designs  ;  and  I  go  the  extent  to  say  that  I  have  always 
been  a  practical  anti-mason  with  regard  to  my  own  acts ;  that  from  principle  I  abhor 
secrecy  in  my  own  affairs,  and  have  an  utter  aversion  to  be  charged  with  the  burden  of 
secrecy  in  the  affairs  of  others,  when  it  can  be  avoided  ;  and  I  hold  th,at  a  CONFIDENTIAL 
COMMUNICATION'  upon  official  business  (except  in  peculiar  relations)  is  particularly  ob 
jectionable,  as  paralyzing  the  freedom  of  efficient  action  upon  the  matter  communicated. 
Common  sense  would  say  that  a  discretion  should,  from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  be 
always  granted  to  the  officer  or  agent,  on  such  occasions.*     If  I  could  ever  have  a  motive 
that  would  be  sufficient  to  overcome  my  repugnance  to  secrecy,  it  ought  to  have  operated 
on  me  in  the  case  of  my  communication  to  the  President,*letailing  the  plans  of  Houston's 
enterprise  against  the  Mexican  dominions.     I  knew  Houston  was  the  intimate  and  cher 
ished  friend  of  General  Jackson,  long  before  the  election  of  the  latter  as  President  of  the 
United  States:  that  he  had  been  upon  the  most  gracious  terms  with  the  President,  during 

*  Secrecy  is  that  dark  mysterious  cloak  which  is  indispensable  to  the  accomplishment  of  all  the  wicket' 
plots  wherewith  indh  iduals  or  combinations  of  men  pin-rue  and  torment  their  unwary  fallow-beings.  What 
ever  be  the  abundance  of  their  other  resources,  their  lawless  enterprises  must  nevertheless  fail,  without  this 
impenetrable  mantle  thrown  over  the  laboratory  of  their  preparations.  It  has  been  the  chief  means  of  the 
successive  destruction  of  empires,  arising  from  comparatively  small  causes,  nurtured,  ramified,  and  grown 
formidable  in  the  dsns  of  the  conspirators.  To  go  no  further  back  than  the  time  when  General  Jackson 
became  the  clandestine  nominee  of  Aaron  Burr  for  the  Presidency,  with  the  co-operation  of  masonic  associa 
tions  we  nviy  safely  pronounce  the  success  of  that  intrisrue  to  be  the  origin  of  the  widespread  ruin  that  has 
since  come  over  this  country,  viewed  in  every  aspect  of  her  moral,  physical,  and  political  deterioration  and 
fallen  condition!  What  c,an  be  m  >ro  characteristic  of  the  dark  purposes  of  the  man,  than  that  declaration 
of  his  to  Mr.  Buchanan,  upon  being  asked  whom  he  would  bring  about  hi.n  to  constitute  his  cabinet  advisers 
in  the  event  of  his  election  by  the  House  of  Representatives  in  1825,  when  he,  in  his  bitter  tone  of  denunci 
ation  and  reproof,  said,  "  if  he  thought  a  hair  of  his  head  know  his  intentions,  he  would  pluck  it  out  ?"  Had 
it  then  or  afterwards  been  generally  known  whom  he  would  select  as  his  associates  and  advisers,  high  and 
low  m  achieving  the  various  debasements  of  the  public  service  and  national  character,  would  any  man 
dare  entertain  the  belief  or  wish  that  he  should  ever  be  elected  President  of  the  United  States,  particularly 
if  he  could  have  taken  into  the' account  the  deeds  which  he  reserved  for  the  defilement  of  his  second  term  '.- 
But  h-ivinf  gradually  spread  corruption  far  and  wi.le,  by  the  abusop  of  his  executive  patronage,  he  has 
brought  on  that  dark  era  in  the  history  of  his  devoted  countrymen,  when  a  considerable  majority  of  them, 
yet  Heedless  of  the  destruction  in  preparation  for  them,  have  at  last,  tolerated  the  dictation  of  a  successor  at 
his  hands:  who  also  pusillanimously  promised  to  do  him  honor  therefor,  by  following  the  footsteps  of  his 
illustrious  predecessor,  and  probably  submits  to  be  the  tool  of  his  dictations  in  his  nominal  retirement.  I  can 
but  say,  the  more  I  see  of  the  disingenuous  acts  of  the  Jackson  drama,  tho  more  am  I  inclined  to  view  SECRECY 
AND  INTRIGUE  as  coutins-germaH  to  DIPLOMATIC  LYiNa 


13 

bis  visit  here  in  the  winter  of  1829-'30,  and  had  been  invited,  as  he  (Houston)  informed 
me,  to  take  his  lodgings  at  the  President's  house,  which  "he  declined  for  the  sake  of  ap 
pearances."  From  these,  and  a  variety  of  other  circumstances,  (among  which  General 
Jackson's  former  agency  in  the  conspiracy  of  Burr,  revived  by  Houston,  is  not  the  least,) 
1  had  ample  reason  to  believe  that  this  same  General  Jackson  was  already  cognisant  of  this 
scheme  of  Houston.  I  therefore  may  safely  say,  without  the  imputation  of  vain  boasting, 
now,  when  I  have  so  fully  proved  my  defiance  of  unjust  suffering  in  a  thousand  shapes 
rather  than  be  recreant  to  the  principles  of  my  whole  life,  that  I  took  great  hazard  upon 
myself  of  being  tomahawked  at  sight  by  Houston,  who  was  a  demi-savage  by  adoption, 
and  of  incurring  General  Jackson's  displeasure,  while  I  was,  and  had  been  for  more  than 
eighteen  months,  in  almost  daily  expectation  of  an  official  appointment — when,  as  SOOH 
as  I  had  other  corroborating  evidence  to  sustain  me,  besides  the  detailed  avowals  of  Hous 
ton,  I  communicated  the  whole  to  the  President — in  the  hope  to  check-mate  this  would-be 
King  of  Texas,  and  counteract  General  Jackson's  collusion,  if  it  existed,  by  interposing 
the  high  and  sacred  obligations  of  his  official  station  ;  but  it  happens  that  that  was  a  very 
small  impediment  to  the  wilfulness  of  the  CHEAT  IRRESPONSIBLE  !  With  this  view, 
however,  that  communication  was  fearlessly  made,  and  accompanied  with  the  express 
authority  in  the  first  sentence  of  it,  "  to  be  used  in  any  way  your  excellency  may  deem 
proper."  I  will  not,  here,  go  into  the  particulars  to  show  that  General  Jackson  did  not 
make  such  use  of  that  communication  as  his  high  official  responsibility  called  on  him  to 
do — that  he  did  not  call  upon  the  witnesses  I  referred  him  to — that  he  did  not  promptly 
admonish  the  district  attorneys,  and  other  legal  agents  throughout  the  West  and  other 
scenes  of  preparation,  of  their  duty  in  reporting  arid  suppressing  those  incipient  move 
ments—that  his  call  upon  Mr.  Fulton  (the  mere  Secretary  of  a  Territory,  and  whose 
brother  I  am  informed  was  a  recruiting  officer  of  Houston,)  was  not  made  in  good  faith  as 
an  efficient  measure,  but  as  a  sham,  a  blind,  to  give  to  the  conspiracy  his  connivance,  and 
to  the  communication  respecting  it  an  unceremonious,  or  rather  a  disingenuous  dismissal; 
to  which  purposes  the  unofficial  character  of  his  letter,  with  the  rigid  injunction  "  strictly 
confidential"  were  to  be  subservient — and  that  his  excuse  in  said  letter,  for  not  addressing 
it  to  the  Governor  instead  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Territory,  to  wit,  "that  the  Governor 
is  understood  to  be  now  in  Kentucky,"  was  a  sheer  assumption  to  render  more  opaque  the 
thin  veil  he  was  throwing  over  the  transaction,  as  the  Governor  was  not  in  Kentucky,  but 
was  at  his  post  in  Arkansas.  Nor  need  I  tarry  here  to  show  that  the  negations  of  Mr.  Ful 
ton's  individual  report  (if  in  fact  he  ever  made  one)  could  not  have  been  satisfactory  under  all 
the  circumstances ;  and  if  it  were  so  considered  at  the  time,  there  were  ample  reasons,  under 
the  notorious  military  preparations  that  shortly  ensued  through  the  West,  why  the  President 
should  have  made  interdictive  proclamation,  upon  those  developments  accruing,  confirma 
tory  of  the  details  I  had  communicated  to  him;  much  less  will  I  here  descant  upon  the 
direct  and  wanton  discredit  he  throws  upon  that  communication,  in  his  secret  letter  to 
Fulton,  and  that  too  without  "investigation,"  "full  and  fair,"  of  which  he  makes  such 
vain  boasting  in  another  part  of  his  affidavit,  on  another  subject,  but  WITHOUT  TRUTH  ! 
Proceeding,  then,  to  the  next  fiction  in  this  romance  of  this  political  mountebank,  viz  : 
"that  these  confidential  letters  were  placed  in  his  confidential  drawer,"  it  will  be  sufficient 
for  me  to  ask  the  common  sense  of  every  man,  what  motive  could  General  Jackson  have, 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  *  secret  and  confidential'  communications,  for  placing  these  letters 
(did  they  exist)  in  his  confidential  executive  bureau  1  Would  he  not  have  naturally  returned 
them  to  me,  with  his  prompt  forthwith,  (at  the  lime  he  thus  disclaimed  action  upon  them,) 
as  being  of  no  value  to  him  1  For  what  purpose  could  he  have  retained  them,  after  informing 
me  peremptorily  that  he  could  not  nor  would  not  take  any  measures  against  those  clerks  on 
my  confidential  complaints]  Or,  why  should  it  not  more  reasonably  have  occurred  to  me 
at  that  conjuncture  to  have  requested  their  return,  rather  than  make  that  request  at  a  sub 
sequent  time,  when  another  overwhelming  disgrace  had  supervened,  according  to  his  state  - 
ment,  which  would  naturally  have  obliterated  any  thought  fr<|m  my  mind  of  this  compara 
tively  small  affair  1  The  answer  to  all  this  is  obvious :  the  concocted  tale  would  have  been 
imperfect,  and  shorn  of  its  symmetry — he  would  not  have  had  it  in  his  power  afterwards, 
to  represent  me  as  sitting  by  his  confidential  bureau,  to  purloin  a  paper  from  a  ma.ss  oi' 
others,  before  his  face,  while  he  was  examining  them  for  those  repudiated  confidential  letters 
to  return  them  to  me  by  my  request .' 

As  to  the  alleged  demand  of  me,  that  I  must  furnish  him  with  specific  charges  to 
which  those  clerks  would  be  called  on  to  respond,  besides  showing,  as  I  now  have  done,  that 
no  such  expression  could  have  been  used  upon  an  occasion  that  never  did  exist,  I  shall  be 


H 

able  to  show,  on  a  full  investigation  hereafter,  and  in  a  summary  manner,  in  the  next  clause, 
that  I  had  full  preliminary  authority,  both  by  particular  request  from  a  confidential  offices 
ff  his  lower  cabinet,  and  by  repeated  encouragement  and  recognition  from  the  President 
himself,  to  assist  in  compiling  LISTS  of  opposition  officers  in  the  departments,  togethei 
with  a  statement  of  the  reprehensible  practices  in  any  manner  connected  with  persons  in 
office — as  auxiliary  means  of  salutary  reform,  to  be  acted  upon  as  he  should  think  proper, 
but  in  no  manner  whatever  connected  with  the  present  subject,  or  with  '  confidential  com 
plaints,'  as  he  would  feign  have  it..  Is  it  not  manifest  that  this  alleged  demand  of  me 
for  "specific  charges"  is  thrown  into  this  affidavit,  in  order  to  give  some  color  of  justifi 
cation  for  those  lists  that  were  made  out  bv  numerous  contributors,  under  authority  and 
circumstances  totally  disconnected  with  the  matter  now  in  hand  1  or,  to  shift  the  odium  of 
responsibility  for  them  from  himself  and  the  other  participators  in  them,  upon  my  shoulders 
alone  1  .Moreover,  is  it  not  palpable  to  every  one  in  any  degree  acquainted  with  General 
Jackson's  history  previous  to  and  during  his  Presidential  terms,  that  he  avails  himself  of 
this  fabricated  occasion  to  interpolate  a  fraudulent  profession  of  principles  by  which  he 
pretends  to  be  governed  1  viz :  '  that  all  men  are  presumed  to  be  innocent  until  guilt  is 
established  ;  that  every  man  charged  with  crime,  or  with  acts  that  would  affect  his  moral 
character,  ought  to  be  heard  in  his  own  defence  !'*  Yes,  I  think  I  may  safely  say  that 
every  man  in  this  community  knows  what  value  to  put  upon  such  professions,  coming 
from  one  who  has  consigned  so  many  of  his  fellow-beings  to  a  cruel  fate,  in  direct  contra 
vention  of  those  principles — who  has  ignominiously  sacrificed  hecatombs  of  public  officers, 
not  only  without  a  hearing,  but  without  a  fault,  and  even  without  an  intimation  to  them 
to  prepare  for  the  sacrifice,  or  that  there  was  any  imputation  against  them,  (who,  ten  to  one, 
are  better  patriots  than  their  wrong-doer,)  to  make  places  for  political  favorites — with  a 
billet  or  death-warrant  of  a  few  parsimonious  peremptory  words, — *  YOUR  SERVICES  AHK 
?io  LOGGER  WAX  TED  :'  which  launches  the  victims  and  their  families  suddenly  and  unpre 
pared  into  a  world  of  vexatious  troubles,  penury,  want,  and  all  the  torments  of  that  living 
death  consequent  upon  this  artificial  seeming  of  one's  country's  disfavor,  worse  than  death's 
reality,  as,  living,  there  is  no  adequate  revenge  to  sweeten  this  bitter  cup  of  crying  injustice, 
while  in  death's  reality  it  would  be  forgotten.'  Bui,  in  my  case,  by  peculiar  good  fortune 
in  the  midst  of  infuriated  party  persecution,  vhe  blind  zeal  of  an  interested  deponent  has 
afforded  me  this  occasion  of  signal  reaction  upon  my  CALUMNIATOR,  of  which  T  am  proud 

IF  BE  WILL  LIVE  TO  FEEL  IT  !  !  ! 

III.  It  has  just  been  seen,  the  deponent  states,  that  upon  his  refusing  to  an  upon  the  two  confidential  let 
ters  imputed  to  me,  he  told  me  I  must  furnish  him  with  specific  charges,  and  then  he  goes  on  to  say :  "  Ihe 
plaintiff,  Robert  Mayo,  in  a  few  days  [19]  thereafter,  (meaning  after  he  required  me  to  lurnisri  him  with  spe 
cific  charges,)  presented  this  deponent  with  a  Ion?  [20]  list  of  charges  in  writing  against  a  gre;it  many  clerks 
in  the  different  departments,  which  vrta  fortfnoith  [21]  referred  to  the  heads  of  Departments  to  be  fully  in 
vestigated,  upon  which  [2'.»]  investigation  Robert  Mayo  failed  [23]  to  establish  his  charges  made  against  any 
one  individual  charged."  Also,  that,  "  soon  [24]  after  this  full  [25]  investigation,  Robert  Mayo  appli'ed  to  [26] 
this  deponent  to  withdraw  these  public  charges;"  that "  deponent  told  him  he  [27]  might, as  the  charges  being 
made,  by  him  and  not  established,  would,  now  being  on  my  public  files,  destroy  [28]  'him  as  a  man  of  truth 
forever ;  and  I  referred  him  to  my  private  secretary,  Major  A.  J.  Donelson.  to  get  them."  Again  :  that  "this 
"deponent  was  informed  [29]  by  Robert  Mayo  and  Major  Donelson  that  these  public  charges  against  the 
clerks  were  given  up  to  him." 


*  Here  is  a  fine  specimen  of  that  beau-ideal  of  systematic  lying  by  which  the  wicked  so  often  profess 
and  profane  the  sacred  principles  of  honor,  justice,  morality,  and  religion,  in  order  to  conceal  their  ultra 
diabolical  purposes,  which  involve  the  most  flagrant  infractions  of  those  principles.  It  would  be  a  very  in 
struct  ive  lesson  at  the  present  crisis,  could  the  American  public  have  a  succinct  enumeration  of  the  atrocious 
t'eeds  that  have  been  perpetrated  in  all  times  uy  the  TURBULENT  ANTAGONISTS  of  law  and  civilization,  under 
this  specious  mask  of  sacred  principles.  Such  professions  constitute  the  substrata  of  all  the  airy  superstruc-- 
tures  of  that  fraternity  of  innovators,  disorganizes,  anarchists,  plunderers,  and  destructives,  who  call  them 
selves  friends  of  the  people,  but  are  Jacobins  in  disguise  all  the  world  over,  and  only  await,  the  fit  occasion 
to  declare  war  to  the  knife,  war  to  the  hilt,  against  all  the  institutions  of  civilization.'  This  specious  system 
of  LYING  is  the  sympathetic  principle  of  instinct  by  which  Jacobins  recognise  each  other  and  assort  together, 
to  cheat  and  supplant  the  friends  of  law,  order,  and  rational  liberty,  in  all  countries,  and  continually  jeopard 
ize  the  cause  of  civilization  in  all  ages.  Did  not  this  same  sect,  in  the  French  Revolution,  profess  the 
abstract  philosophical  principles  tof  liberty,  equality,  and  justice,  which  they  rarely  practised  when  anv 
thing  was  to  be  gained  by  their  perversion  ?  Did  they  not  affect  to  accuse  that  portion  of  their  fellow-citi 
zens  whom  they  called  ARISTOCRATS,  with  murdering  and  plundering  one  another,  in  order  to  bring  dis- 
prace  and  infamy  on  their  friends  and  adherents  the  ferocious  dtmocrats,  whom  they  had  systematically  and 
clandestinely  instigated  to  perform  those  cruel  and  savage  horrors  ?  And  is  it  not  the  universal  practice  of 
the  same  sect  of  the  present  day,  to  profess  principles  they  never  perform,  and  accuse  their  Whig  opponents 
of  the  abominations  familiar  only  to  their  own  hands,  in  order  to  disguise  the  ulterior  revolutionary  purposes 
with  which  they  now  imminently  threaten  the  country  ?  Adverting  to  the  party  incidents  that  have  taken 
date  from  the  commencement  of  the  Jackson  era,  we  have  superabounding  evidence  of  this  system  of  de 
ception  and  fraud,  in  the  professions  of  reform  made  at  the  incipience  of  his  administration,  which  were 
only  meant,  as  the  event  has  proved,  to  cover  the  premeditated  sins  of  official  proscription  on  the  one  hand 
and  puny  favoritism  on  the  other,  to  the  Infinite  embarrassment  and  deterioration  of  the  public  service 


In  the  first  specification  in  this  third  section,  there  is  a  very  material  error,  as  I  never 
did  present  General  Jackson  with  such  a  list  as  he  describes,  of  charges  made  by  myseli 
against  a  great  many  clerks  in  the  different  departments ;  but  I  did,  at  an  interval  of  nearly 
two  y«ars — perhaps  a  little  over  two  years  between — present  him  with  two  lists,  of  which  I 
have  spoken  in  a  pamphlet  published  in  1837,  as  the  SECOND  and  THIRD  editions  of  re- 
form ;  the  first  list,  or  edition  of  reform,  having  been  presented  to  him  by  some  of  his 
coadjutors  in  reform  upon  his  instalment  into  office  many  months  before  I  had   visited 
Washington,  or  had  any  knowledge  of  the  proscription  then   contemplated.     The  affiant 
doubtless  predicates  this  statement,  in  part  at  least,  upon  one  of  those  two  lists  which  I 
presented  to  him  above  mentioned  ;  it  is  not  probable  that  he  alludes  to  the  first  of  them, 
which  I  have  called  the  second  edition  of  reform,  because  that  list. (a  garbled  copy  of  which, 
if  I  mistake  not,  was  published  in  the  extra  Globe  of  the  1st  of  May,  1831)  contained  com 
paratively  few  charges,  but  consisted  chiefly  of  the  names  of  opposition  clerks  and  officers 
here,  that  had  been  turned  out,  and  of  others  that  yet  remained  in  office,  obnoxious  to  re 
form  for  opinion's  sake ;  in  the  compilation  of  which  list  I  assisted  William  Hunter,  Esq.,  [d.] 
a  clerk  of  Amos  Kendall  while  4th  Auditor,  by  his  (Kendall's)  request  conveyed  to  me  by 
his  clerk,  he  retaining  one  copy  for  Kendall,  and  1  one  for  General  Jackson.     This  list 
occasioned  little  or  no  public  excitement,  probably  because  no  action  that  I  know  of  was 
ever  taken  upon  it,  more  than  to  plead  the  forbearance,  of  the  President,  through  the  col 
umns  of  the  Globe  and  other  party  prints,  pending  t/ie  second  election  campaign  of  General 
Jackson,  then  commenced.     If  the  deponent  alludes  to  the  second  list,  accompanied  with  a 
memorial  signed  by  sundry  citizens  of  Washington,  presented  to  him  in  May,  1833,  then  he 
falsifies  the  origin  of  it,  as  just  shown,  arid  is  mistaken,  wilfully  or  otherwise,  in  nearly  every 
thing  he  alleges  in  regard  to  it,  except  that  it  was  forthwith  referred  to  the  heads  of  Depart 
ments,  or  his  cabinet,  as  I  had  informed  General  Cass,  his  Secretary  of  War,  lie.  would  do, 
the  morning  previous.  Whether  he  ordered  its  contents  to  be  fully  investigated,  I  know  not ; 
but  that  such  investigation  v}as  made,  as  he  asserts,  I  can  prove  to  be  untrue  by  the  uni  - 
versal  recollection  of  the  clerks,  and  the  gentlemen  then  officiating  in  his  cabinet,  by  whose 
discountenance,  mainly,  IT  WAS  SUPPRESSED.     Arid  that  I  failed  to  establish  my  charged 
against  any  one  individual  charged,  I  can  equally  prove  to  be  false,-   for  a  failure  to  estab 
lish,  implies  that  I  had  an  opportunity  to  Jo  so ;  whereas,  I  was  denied,  on  my  written  ap 
plication,  to  be  heard,  or  even  to  have   the  witnesses  called  that  had   been  referred  to  in 
support  of  their  own  statements,  though  I  always  understood  that  they  were  ready  to  sub 
stantiate  what  they  had  stated ;  and  I  repeatedly  declared  my  readiness,  both  verbally  and 
in  writing,  to  establish  the  few  facts  that  I  had  stated.     When  I  presented  to  the  President 
my  written  application  to  be  heard,  declaring  my  readiness  to  go  into  the  investigation  of 
the  statements  by  testimony,  he  referred  me,  by  endorsement  upon  the  letter,  to  Mr.  Mc- 
Lane,  then  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.      Mr.  McLane,  being  engaged,  or  perhaps  from  a 
determination  not  to  entertain  the  investigation,  did  not  see  me ,-  in  consequence  of  which, 
I  repaired  directly  to  the   Secretary  of  War,  (General  Cass,)  as  one  of  the  cabinet,  and 
presented  him  with  the  reference  from  the  President.      Upon  presenting  the  letter,  with  tho> 
President's  endorsation  upon  it,  referring  it  to  Mr.  McLane,  I  remarked  to  General  Cas^s 
that  I  had  not  been 'able  to  see  Mr.  McLane,  and  that  as  he  (General  Cass)  would  proba 
bly  be  a  party  in  the  proposed  investigation,  and  would  see  Mr.  McLane,  I  preferred  hand 
ing  the  letter  to  him  in  person,  rather  than  let  it  pass  out  of  my  hands  through  a  messen 
ger  to  Mr.  McLane.     Upon  looking  at  the  superscription,  General   Cass  remarked  that 
General  Jackson  had  a  way  of  endorsing  every  thing;  adding,  that  there  would  be  NO  IN 
VESTIGATION  of  the  statements,  or  words  tantamount,  and  remarked  to  me,  "  Why  sow  the 
winds  to  reap  the  whirlwind !"     To  which  I  replied,  that  he  was  perhaps  not  aware  of  the 
authority  by  which  the  statements  had  been  made  out ;  that  as  to  the  participation  I  had 
in  it,  I  was  ready  to  justify  myself  with  the  authority  of  the  President  himself,  and  the  co 
operation  of  many  of  his  friends,  in  whom,  one  or  more  of  them,  the  project  had  originated, 
and  not  in  myself;  that  I  was  ready  to  establish  the  facts  I  had  stated  of  my  own  knowl 
edge,  and  had  no  doubt  others  would  do  the  same  in  regard  to  their  statements,  if  permit 
ted.     But,  upon  thus  learning  that  there  would  be  no  investigation,  I  addressed  a  letter  to 
the   President,  proposing  to  withdraw  the  documents,  and  about  the  same  time  (probably 
the  next  day)  mentioned  the  fact  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  who  informed  me  that  he  had 
heard  of  my  application  to  withdraw  them,  but  that  the  determination  was,  that  they  should 
not  be  returned,  stating  that  the  course  adopted  was,  to  address  a  letter  to  Mr.  De  Krafft, 
and  other  signers  of  the  memorial  that  accompanied  the  list  or  sequel,  to  inform  them  of 
the  determination  taken  by  the  President;  and  he  (General  Cass)  inquired  of  me,  at  the 


16 

same  time,  if  I  had  not  retained  a  copy.    To  which  I  replied  that  1  had  not,  as  it  was  a  long 
document,  and  General  Jackson  had   been  impatient  to  have  it ;  that  I  had  a  copy  of  the 
memorial  (see  Appendix  C)  and  most  of  the  originals,  and  the  rough  materials  from  which 
the  sequel  accompanying  it  had  been  made  ;  but  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  renew  the 
copy  with  exactness,  in  regard  to  order,  matters  omitted,  or  additional  information  verbally 
stated  to  the  committee  making  that  copy.     Whereupon,  he  (General  Cass)  recommend 
ed  me,  if  I  had  any  thing  to  urge  in  that  regard,  that  I  would  see  Major  Donelson,  the  pri 
vate  secretary  of  the  President,  (hat  morning,  who  was  probably  then  about  despatching 
the  letter  to  the  memorialists.     I  did  see  Major  Donelson  accordingly,  and  understood 
from  him  the  purport  above  stated,  and  that,  as  I  was  not  a  signer  of  the  memorial,  I  was 
WOT  considered  as  having  the  right  to  control  it  or  to  withdraw  it.    The  President's  letter, 
written  by  his  secretary  in   his   behalf,  was  addressed   "  To  E.  DF.KKAFFT   and  "others, 
signers  of  a  MEMORIAL  of  sundry  citizens  of  Washington,  to  the  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNI 
TED  STATES."     (See  Appendix  D).     On  receiving  it,  Mr.  DeKrafft  immediately  sent  for 
me,  and  placed  it  (where  it  now  is,  ready  to  speak  for  itself)  in  my  hands,  the  perusal  of 
which  also  shows  the  determination  of  the  President  to  retain  the  memorial  and  sequel  for 
further  consideration,  and  not  to  act  on  them  for  "  the  present."    It  ia,  therefore,  iiot  true, 
both  according  to  my  own  distinct  recollection,  and  General  Jackson's  own  letter  to  De 
Krafft,  that  he  ever  told  me  I  might  withdraw  the  document;  and  it  is  absolutely  faht 
that  I  ever  told  him  that  Major  Donelson  had  returned  it  to  me.     It.is  equally  untrue  that 
the  long  list  of  charges  I  presented  to  General  Jackson  originated  in  the  manner  he  as 
serts  ;  it  is  not  true  that  a  full  investigation  of  said  list  was  ever  made  ;  it  is  not  true  that 
T  failed,  on  full  investigation,  to  establish  any  of  those  charges,  there  having  been  no  inves 
tigation  ;  it  is  not  true  that  said  list  was  ever  returned  to  me  ;  and,  as  I  have  just  said,  it 
is  utterly  false  that  I  ever  told  General  Jackson  that  it  was  given  up  to  me.     1  hope  this 
la'ter  statement  of  the  deponent  was  not  made  with  a  view  to  excuse  himself  from  ever 
producing  that  list  hereafter ;  if  so,  the  imperfect  materials  now  in  my  possession,  from 
which,  in  part,  it  was  made  out,  must  tell  for  it  as  well  as  they  can  at  a  future  time ;  and 
in   regard  to  his  declaration,  that   he  told  me,  as  a  reason  for  giving  that  list  up  to  me, 
that  those  charges  being  made  by  me  and  not  established  would  now,  being  on  his  public 
files,  destroy  me  as  a  man  of  truth  forever,  no  man  who  knows  me  can  believe  for  a 
moment  that  such  language  was  ever  uttered  to  me  by  any  one,  General  Jackson  not  ex- 
cepted,  without  instantly  having  his  nose  pulled,  his  jaws  slapped,  and  spit  in  the  face  as 
the  minimum  of  his  punishment.    But  suppose,  for  an  instant,  that  such  were  a  true  state 
ment;  then  I  would  ask,  what  is  to  be  thought  of  a  President  of  the  United  States,  who 
could  afterwards  confer  or  sanction  frequent  appointments  on  one  whom  he  held  to  be  thus 
infamous  1     About  twelve  months  after  the  date  of  his  letter  to  De  Krafft,  (say  in  July, 
1834,)  at  the  adjournment  of  Congress,  he  called  me  to  him  as  he  took  his  seat  in  his  car 
riage,  (the  Vice  President,  Mr.  Van  Buren,  seated  by  his  side — Mr.  Taney,  General  Cass, 
and  I  think  Mr.  Forsyth,  were  present,  just  taking  their  carriages  on  leaving  the  capitol,) 
and  requested  me  to  "  come  to-morrow  morning''  to  the  mansion.     And  what  was  it  for? 
To  instruct  me  to  call  on  the  Secretary  of  State,  who  would  give  me  an  appointment  to  fill 
the  vacancy  of  Alexander  Mclntyre,  who  had  just  been  removed  from  the  chief  clerkship 
in  the   Patent  Office.     Also,  in   October,  1836,  he  approved  of  my  appointment  as  sole 
clerk  in  a  temporary  bureau  in  the  War  Department — a  bureau  of  great  intricacy,  and  ex 
tremely  delicate  trust,  in  which  I  officiated  nearly  two  years  without  ever  hearing  of  the 
slightest  dissatisfaction,  until  the  false  clamor  was  raised  that  I  had  purloined  the  copy  of 
General  Jackson's  letter  to  Fulton,  whereupon  I  was  removed  from  office  without  a  hearing — 
probably  because  such  a  hearing  would  put  the  whole  conspirators  to  shame.     But  I  regret 
not,  now,  that  injustice,   because  I  NOW  HAVE  THE  PROSPECT  OF  A  MORE  FULL  AND  FAIR 

INVESTIGATION   BEFORK  >IE. 

In  fine,  there  can  be  nothing  more  obvious,  upon  a  survey  of  this  whole  subject,  than 
the  reflection  that,  had  I  the  imbecility  to  pronounce  General  Jackson's  action  upon  the 
conspiracy  of  Houston  all  sufficient,  had  I  the  servility  to  RLORIFT  HIM  UPON  IT,  this  cal 
umny  of  purloining  WOULD  NEVER  HAVE  BEEN  THOUGHT  OF  ! 

I  hope  my  counsel  will  be  able  to  find  some  assistance  from  this  expose,  in  making  their 
briefs  in  the  cause ;  and  I  cheerfully  grant  to  the  opposing  counsel  all  the  benefit  they  can 
derive  from  it  in  the  defence. 

ROBERT  MAYO. 

WASHINGTON  CITY,  December  23,  1839. 


APPENDIX. 


'  By  a  careful  examination  of  the  following  documents,  [A]  and  [C],  with  the  respective 
actidns  on  them,  [B]  and  [D],  the  reader  will  perceive  how  each  of  the  former  is  virtually 
falsified  in  the  two  latter,  and  set  at  naught  by  the  President.  To  assist  in  this  comparison, 
I  will  only  here  make  a  single  general  remark  in  relation  to  document  [A],  that  no  exami 
nation  of  witnesses  had  been  made,  to  my  knowledge,  to  justify  the  President  in  saying, 
in  document  [B],  that  no  facts  had  been  established,  and  he  was  induced  to  believe  the 
circumstances  communicated  to  him  were  erroneous.  And  in  relation  to  document  [C], 
that  its  prayer  did  not  ask  for  the  removal  of  any  one,  as  he  more  than  insinuates  in  docu 
ment  [D],  but  submits  the  statements  for  such  disposition  as  to  his  excellency  might  seem 
fit  and  proper,  &c.  In  fine,  I  shall  ever  be  of  opinion  that  the  documents  [A]  and  [C] 
were  entitled  to  a  more  efficient  action  ;  but  the  reader  can  only  appreciate  the  entire  mer 
its  on  a  future  perusal  of  the  whole  of  the  documents. 

[A-] 

[Original  letter  addressed  to  the  President  in  1830,  and  returned  in  1836.] 


a  b- 

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qr- 

"  ToOeneral  ANDREW  JACKSON,  President  of  the  United  States: 

"  The  enclosed  is  the  scheme  of  a  Secret  Alphabet,  in  the  hand-writing  of  a  Mr.  Hunter,  which  came  into 
my  possession  in  the  manner  hereinafter  mentioned,  and  which  I  confide  to  your  excellency,  together  with 
the  following  statement  of  facls,  to  be  used  in  any  way  your  excellency  may  deem  proper.  Written  out,  the 
Alphabet  stands  thus : 

[In  the  original  letter,  the  thirteen  compartments  of  the  above  diagram  are  separated  into  their  elements, 
consisting  oftwo  letters  each,  distinguished  by  a  dot;  that  is,  a  and  b  are  the  same,  except  that  b  has  a  dot ; 
and  so  on  with  the  rest,  giving  the  entire  alphabet.] 

"In  making  the  following  statement,  it  seems  to  me  desirable,  with  a  view  to  brevity,  without  impairing 
or  obscuring  the  facts,  to  avoid  that  circumlocution  which  a  minute  detail  of  contingent  and  immaterial  cir 
cumstances  would  involve. 

"  Some  time  in  the  month  of  February  last,  as  nearly  as  J  can  recollect— certainly  very  shortly  after  Gen 
eral  Samuel  Houston  arrived  in  this  city— I  was  introduced  to  him  at  Brown's  hotel,  where  both  of  us  had 
taken  lodgings  Our  rooms  were  on  the  same  floor,  and  convenient  for  social  intercourse ;  which,  from  the 
general's  courteous  manners,  and  my  own  desire  to  be  enabled  to  do  him  justice  in  my  own  estimation,  rel 
ative  to  his  abandoning  his  family  and  abdicating  the  Government  of  Tennessee,  readily  became  frequent 
and  intimate.  Upon  what  he  perhaps  deemed  a  suitable  maturity  of  acquaintance,  he  srx>ke  freely  and  mi 
nutely  of  his  past  nistory.  He  spoke  of  his  separation  from  Mrs.  H.  with  great  sensibility,  and  deprecated 
the  injurious  impression  it  had  made  upon  a  considerable  portion  of  the  public  mind,  disparaging  the  sanity 
i  f  his  intellect,  or  rectitude  jof  his  moral  character.  Judging  favorably,  no  doubt,  of  the  progress  of  our 
acquaintance,  and  the  prepossessing  impression  it  had  made  on  me  in  relation  to  the  salubrity  and  general 
competency  of  his  intelligence,  with  rectitude  of  impulses,  he  complained  of  the  inadequate  defence  vol 
unteered  in  his  behalf  by  the  editor  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  ana  solicited  me  to  write  communications 
for  the  columns  of  that  paper,  and  use  my  friendly  interest  with  the  editor  for  their  publication.  I  promised 
to  make  a  sketch  of  something  anonymous  respecting  my  favorable  impressions,  and  show  it  to  him.  But, 
before  I  had -time  or  full  pliancy  of  mind  to  digest  any  thoughts  upon  the  subject,  our  frequent  interviews, 
and  his  confidence  in  my  serving  his  ends,  doubtless,  induced  him  to  avow  to  me  more  particularly  the 
ground  of  his  solicitude  to  have  his  character  and  mental  competency  elevated  before  the  public.  He  des 
canted  on  the  immense  field  for  enterprise  in  the  Indian  settlement  beyond  the  Mississippi,  and  through 
that,  as  a  stepping-stone,  in  Texas ;  and  recommended  me  to  direct  my  destinies  that  way.  Without  making 
any  promises  or  commitments,  I  did  not  discourage,  at  this  stage,  his  inflated  schemes  for  my  advancement, 
as  I  had  a  curiosity,  now  on  tip-toe,  to  hear  his  romantic  projections;  for  his  manner  and  his  enthusiasm  were, 
at  least,  entertaining.  Accordingly,  he  went  on  to  develop  much  of  a  systematic  enterprise,  Lnit  not  hall 
what  I  have  since  learnt  from  another  source  ;  perhaps  because  he  discovered  that  my  interest  in  the  subject 
did  not  keep  pace  with  the  anticipations  he  had  formed  for  the  progress  of  his  disclosures.  I  learnt  from  him 
these  facts  and  speculations,  viz  : 

"  That  he  was  organizing  an  expedition  against  Texas  ;  to  afford  a  cloak  to  which,  he  had  assumed  the  In- 
dian  costume,  habits,  and  associations,  by  settling  among  them,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Texas.    That  nothin? 
was  more  easy  to  accomplish  than  the  conquest  and  possession  of  that  extensive  and  fertile  country,  by  the 
2 


18 

co-operation  of  the  Indians  in  the  Arkansas  Territory,  and  recruits  among  the  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
That  in  his  vie .  •  it  would  hardly  be  necessary  to  strike  a  blow  to  wrest  Texas  from  Mexico.  That  it  was 
ample  for  the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  a  separate  and  independent  government  from  the  United 
States.  That  the  expedition  would  be  got  ready  with  all  possible  despatch— that  the  demonstration  would 
and  must  be  made  in  about  twelve  months  from  that  time-  That  the  event  of  success  opened  the  most  un- 
bDunded  prospects  of  wealth  to  those  who  would  embark  in  it ;  and  that  it  was  with  a  view  to  facilitate  his 
recruits,  he  wished  to  elevate  himself  in  the  public  confidence  by  the  aid  of  my  communications  to  the  Rich 
mond  Enquirer.  That  I  should  have  a  surgeoncy  in  the  expedition,  and  recommended  me  in  the  mean  time 
to  remove  along  with  him,  and  practise  physic  among  the  Indians  in  the  Territory. 

"  As  the  matter  began  to  assume  the  shape  of  a  close  and  substantial  proposition,  I  felt  myself  under  the 
necessity  to  be  decisive,  v.hich  put  an  end  to  the  further  detail  of  his  plans.  I  declined  the  overtures  for  my 
participation  ;  and  farther  told  him,  by  way  of  exonerating  myself  from  the  promise  to  make  communications 
to  the  Enquirer,  without  exciting  his  apprehensions  of  my  active  hostility,  to  his  views,  that  it  would  be  very 
impolitic  to  attract  the  public  attention  towards  himself  in  that  general  and  indiscriminate  manner ;  that  it 
would  surely  invite  inquiry  from  some  quarter  about  the  motives  of  such  communications,  which  would  prob 
ably  issue  in  ferreting  out  his  whole  scheme.  After  this,  our  interviews  fell  into  neglect— our  intercourse  con 
sisted  only  of  salutations  of  civility— he  sought  not  my  company,  and,  as  a  matter  of 'prudence,  I  rather  avoid 
ed  his. 

"  In  the  early  part  of  our  intercourse,  General  Houston  informeu  me  that  he  had  volunteered  to  assure  the 
President  that  he  had  no  desire  for  an  appointment  of  any  sort  under  his  administration ;  that  he  believed 
the  President  would  give  him  almost  any  thing  he  would  request ;  but  that  he  took  into  consideration  the 
prejudice  with  which  an  appointment  conferred  on  him  might  be  regarded  by  the  public,  subsisting  the  cir 
cumstances  and  causes  of  his  exile.  Yet,  I  have  understood  from  indisputable  authority  that  General  Hous 
ton  did  apply  for  and  solicit  the  appointment  to  furnish  provisions,  &c.,  for  the  Indians,  &c.,  at  the  charge  of 
the  United  States,  in  that  quarter ;  which  was  denied  him.  But,  whether  that  wish  has  not  been,  as  to  his 
views,  sufficiently  substituted  by  the  successful  application  of  a  most  intimate  friend  of  his,  (General  Van 
Forsen,  lately  of  New  York,)  is  a  problem  perhaps  not  unworthy  of  inquiry.  In  the  month  of  March,  General 
Houston  visited  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  and  New  York,  and  did  intend  to  have  gone  as  far  as  Boston,  as  he 
informed  me,  under  such  circumstances  as  made  the  inference  of  his  business  a  matter  hardly  to  be  doubted. 
"  Some  time  in  the  month  of  June,  shortly  after  the  adjournment  of  Congress,  (or  possibly  in  May,  a  short 
time  before  adjournment,)  having  returned  to  Richmond,  I  met  with  a  young  gentleman  in  that  place  by  the 
uame  of  Murray,  from  Tennessee,  on  his  return  home  through  the  southern  States.  1  had  become  acquainted 
with  him,  in  this  city,  early  in  the  winter.  He  had  also  told  me  that  he  wanted  no  employment  from  the  Gov 
ernment,  but  was  travelling  rather  for  his  personal  gratification.  A  considerable  portion  of  the  winter  he  had 
passed  in  a  town  to  the  north.  When  I  called  on  him  in  Richmond,  I  made  an  oblique  turn  of  conversation, 
upon  the  mysterious  conduct  of  General  Houston ;  and  expressed  a  surmise  that  he  must  have  some  very 
deep  views  in  exiling  himself  from  the  civilized  world,  to  settle  among  the  Indians.  This,  Mr.  Murray 
readily  confirmed,  apparently,  as  if  he  thought  it  a  perfectly  innocent  and  legitimate  matter,  or  as  a  thing  of 
common  rumor,  and  of  no  concern  to  him—by  remarking  that  the  general  was  organizing  an  expedition  to 
take  possession  of  Texas.  Upon  my  asking  him  how  he  knew  that,  he  replied, 'that  it  was  a  good  deai 
spoken  of  at  Washington.'  I  did  not  press  th£  subject  sufficiently  to  satisfy  my  mind  whether  it  was  by  com 
mon  rumor,  or  among  recruits  only,  that  Mr.  Murray  meant  it  was  spoken  of.  as  Mr.  M's  movements  indij 
cated  to  me  some  agency  in  the  -business  ;  and  too  much  curiosity  on  my  part,  after  having  declined  cp-oper 
ation,  with  which  lie  might  already  be, or  might  become  acquainted,  would  possibly  excite  alarm,  and  induce 
the  parties  to  remodel  their  plan  -with  greater  secrecy  and  security. 

"Shortly  after  my  return  to  this  city,  a  few  weeks  aco, a  Mr.  Hunter,  lately  dismissed  from  West  Point, 
came  to  take  lodgings  in  the  house  where  I  boarded.  He  presently  discovered  himself  to  be  very  indiscreet, 
and  boastful  of  himself,  whether  in  relation  to  advantages  real  or  imaginary.  On  a  visit  to  my  apartment , 
being  in  pecuniary  embarrassments,  and  unable  to  redeem  his  baggasre  from  the  house  he  last  boarded  at,  he 
fell  to  boasting  of  therfunds  he  was  daily  expecting  by  the  mail,  of  his  father's  present  riches,  and  still  greater 
wealth  before  his  misfortunes,  and  of  his  own  possessions,  independent  of  his  father,  whereof  he  had  already 
spent  five  thousand  dollars  in  enjoying  life.  But,  says  he,  all  that  is  nothing  to  the  unbounded  prospects  1 
have  of  wealth  in  the  future.  Indeed  !  said  I,  how  is  it  that  you  can  engender  wealth  to  repair  your  extrava- 
eance  with  such  facility?  Ah,  says  he,  that  is  a  secret.  I  will  lay  my  life,  said  I,  it  is  a  scheme  upon  Texas 
He,  hesitatingly,  said  yes,  something  like  it.  And,  said  I,  General  Houston  is  the  projector  and  conductor  of 
the  enterprise. '  At  this  he  was  so  impressed  with  the  conviction  that  1  knew  all  about  the  plan,  and  was  one 
of  the  recruits,  that  he  declared  it  to  be  his  belief,  and  asked  me  some  questions  to  that  effect.  I  declined  an 
swering,  remarking  that  I  did  not  believe  he  knew  any  thing  about  it,  and  should  tell  him  nothing.  Upon 
this  issue,  to  vindicate  his  knowledge  and  alleged  fraternity,  he  set  in  to  tell  mo  every  thing. 

"  Says  he,  there  is  your  name,  (writing  my  nar.;a  on  the  table  in  cipher,  where  it  yet  stands  unobliterated  ) 
1  was  still  incredulous.  He  asked  for  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  and  wrote  the  scheme  here  enclosed,  and  then 
wrote  my  name  at  the  bottom. 

"  That  he  was  a  bonafide  agent  of  the  recruiting  service  for  this  District ;  and  that  there  were  agencies  es 
tablished  in  all  the  principal  towns,  and  various  parts  of  the  United  States;  and  that  this  conventional  alpha 
bet  was  the  channel  of  correspondence.  Thai  several  thousands  had  already  enlisted  along  the  sea  board, 
from  New  England  to  Georgia,  inclusive.  That  each  man  paid  thirty  dollars  to  the  common  fund,  and  took 
an  oath  of  secrecy  and  good  faith  to  the  cause,  on  joining  the  party.  That  they  were  to  repair,  in  their  indi 
vidual  capacities,"  as  travellers,  to  different  points  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  where  they  had  already 
chartered  steamboats,  on  which  to  embark,  and  thence  ply  to  their  rendezvous,  somewhere  in  the  Territory 
of  Arkansas,  or  Texas,  convenient  for  action,  (the  plan  not  specified  to  me.)  That  it  was  contemplated  to 
supersede  General  Houston  in  the  civil  government,  when  the  military  operations  were  over ;  and  that  they 
meant  to  establish  an  independent  Government,  and  resist  any  attempt  of  the  United  States  to  wrest  so  val 
uable  a  prize  from  them. 

"  He  finally  appealed  to  me  again,  with  some  concern,  to  say  if  I  were  not  one  of  the  party.  I  observed,  that 
I  should  tell  him  nothing  about  it ;  and  changed  the  subject  to  some  levity,  and  afterwards  avoided  his  further 
importunities,  &c. 

"  I  am,  very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

"  R.  MA  iG 
"  WASHINGTON  CITY,  D.  C.,  December  2, 1830.'- 

[B.] 
("Strictly  confidential.) 

1  WASHINGTON,  December  10, 1830. 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  It  has  been  stated  to  me  that  an  extensive  expedition  against  Texas  is  organizing  in  the  Ui.»- 
led  States,  with  a  view  to  the  establishment  cf  an  independent  Go\4ernment  in  that  province,  and  that  Gen 


era!  Houston  is  to  be  at  the  head  of  it.  From  all  th«  circumstances  communicated  to  me  upon  this  subject, 
and  which  have  fallen  under  my  observation,  I  am  induced  to  believe  and  hope  (notwithstanding  the  cir 
cumstantial  manner  in  which  it  is  related  to  me)  that  the  information  I  have  received  is  erroneous,  and  it  is 
unnecessary  that  I  should  add  my  sincere  icish  that  it  may  be  so.  No  movements  have  been  made,  nor  have 
any/acts  been  established,  which  would  require  or  would  justify  the  adoption  of  official  proceedings 
against  individuals  implicated;  yet  so  strong  is  the  detestation  of  the  criminal  steps  alluded  lo,  and  such 
Hre  niy  apprehensions  of  the  extent  to  which  the  peace  and  honor  of  the  country  might  be  compromised  by 
it,  as  to  make  me  anxious  to  do  every  thing  short  of  it  which  may  serve  to  elicit  the  truth,  and  to  furnish  me 
with  the  necessary  facts  (if  they  exist)  to  lay  Refoundation  of  further  measures. 

"  It  is  said  that  enlistments  have  been  made  for  the  enterprise  in  various  parts  of  the  Union  ;  that  the  con 
federates  are  to  repair,  as  travellers,  to  different .points  of  the  Mississippi,  where  they  have  already  char 
tercd  steamboats  in  which  to  embark ;  that  the  point  of  rendezvous  is  to  be  in  the  Arkansas  Territory  ;  and 
(hat  the  co-operation  of  the  Indians  is  looked  to  by  those  engaged  in  the  contemplated  expedition. 

"  I  know  of  no  one  whose  situation  will  better  enable  him  to  watch  the  course  of  things,  and  keep  me  truly 
and  constantly  advised  of  any  movements  which  may  serve  to^icstify  the  suspicions  which  arc  entertained, 
than  yourself;  and  I  know  I  can  rely  with  confidence  on  your  fidelity  and  activity.  To  secure  your  exer 
tions  in  that  regard,  is  the  object  of  this  letter ;  and  it  is  because  I  wish  it  to  be  considered  rather  as  a  private 
than  an  official  act,  that  it  is  addressed  to  you  instead  of  the  Governor,  (who  is  understood  to  be  noio  in 
Kentucky.) 

"  The  course  to  be  pursued  to  effect  the.object  in  view  must  of  necessity  be  left  to  your  discretion,  enjoining 
only  that  the  utmost  secrecy  be  observed  on  your  part.    If,  in  the  performance  of  the  duty  required  of  you, 
any  rxpensps  are  necessarily  incurred  by  you,  I  will  see  they  are  refunded, 
"rain,  respectfully,  yours, 

"ANDREW  JACKSON. 

•'*  \VM.  FCLTOX,  Esq.'' 

[p.] 

'<  The  memorial  of  sundry  citizens  of  Washington,  to  his  Excellency  ANDREW  JACKSON,  President  of  fhr. 

United  States,  GREETING  : 

"  Your  memorialists  respectfully  oeg  leave  to  approach  your  Excellency  with  the  most  grateful  sensibili 
ties  for  the  benefits  which  have  accrued,  and  are  daily  maturing,  through  the  instrumentality  of  your  aus 
piciptts  administration,  in  advancing  the  prosperity  of  our  common  country,  by  the  happy  adjustment  of  our 
loreign  relations,  and  the  conciliatory  propitiation  of  our  internal  discontents.  , 

"  But  your  memorialists  are  not  unaware  of  the  humiliating  truth,  that,  while  the  details  of  these  momen 
tons  concerns  have  continually  received  the  most  prompt  consideration  and  efficient  action  because  they 
are  under  the  more  immediate  recognition  and  control  of  your  Excellency,  they  constitute  but  a  comparati  vely 
remote  object  of  concern  with  the  citizens  of  Wa?'.1  ington,  and  affect  them  only  in  their  small  participations 
with  the  all-absorbing  commercial  and  manufacturing  interests  of  the  Union  at  large.  Whereas,  the  details 
of  the  official  responsibility  and  moral  deportment  in  the  minor  officers  of  the  Government,  located  here, 
while  they  more  closely  affect  the  interests  and  character  of  the  citizens  of  Washington,  they  are  of  vastly 
inferior  executive  consideration,  and  are  too  remote  from  your  personal  supervisorship  for  any  delinquency 
therein  to  reach  your  knowledge  for  correction,  except  by  the  volunteer  information  of  those  directly  cogni 
zant  of  the  facts  and  most  deeply  interested  in  their  reformation. 

"  That  the  citizens  of  Washington  may  have  a  more  minute  knowledge  of  official  abuses  and  moral  de 
pravity  at  the  seat  of  government,  and  feel  a  deeper  interest  in  their  correction,  than  any  other  portion  of  the 
Union,  your  memorialists  presume  to  believe  your  Excellency  will  yield  a  ready  assent.  Your  memorialists 
also  entertain  the  belief  that  the  national  character,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  is  necessarily  assimilated  to, 
and  tinctured  by,  that  of  the  Metropolis  ;  while  the  character  of  its  citizens  must  be  still  more  immediately 
identified  with  the  official  integrity  and  moral  deportment  of  the  officers  of  Government  residing  among  them, 
forming  as  they  do  so  great  a  proportion  of  its  temporary  inhabitants. 

'•'  Furthermore,  your  memorialists  cannot  suppress  the  heart-rending  conviction  that  the  rapid  growth  and 
nurture  of  fraud,  alone,  at  the  seat  of  government,  evincing  in  many  instances  the  most  awful  want  of  integ 
rity  and  obduracy  of  conscience  in  the  servants  of  the  people,  tends  more  to  alienate  their  affections  from 
the  sacred  union  of  the  States,  than  all  the  local  and  sectional  incongruities  taken  in  a  mass.  Nay,  your  me 
morialists  may  add,  that  the  audacity  of  defaulters  within  a.few  years,  and  of  recent  date,  together  with  a  fre 
quent  repetition  of  minor  improprieties  of  daily  notoriety,  bear  a  striking  analogy  to  the  oft-repeated  and 
daring  infractions  of  law  and  decorum  in  the  dense  population  of  large  towns,  where  the  calculation  seems  to 
be,  that  the  delinquent  will  be  lost  sight  of  in  the  crowd,  or,  if  seen,  that  he  will  be  borne  in  countenance  by 
the  depraved  gratulations  of  an  extensive  fraternity.  Nor  can  your  memorialists  resist  the  belief  that  any 
grade  of  unofficerly  conduct  is  but  a  miniature,  in  its  own  desree,  of  the  most  atrocious  outrage,  and,  while  re 
garded  with  too  much  lenity,  is  only  nurtured  in  its  tendency  to  the  grossest  results! 

"  Under  this  aspect  of  a  subject  interesting,  in  a  remote  degree,  to  the  whole  Union,  but  vital  in  its  bear 
ings  on  the  interests  and  character  of  the  Metropolis,  your  memorialists  beg  leave  to  submit  to  the  considera 
tion  of  your  Excellency  the  accompany  ing  statements  and  specifications,  vouched  for  by  respectable  names 
and  references;  and  pray  your  Excellency  will  grant  such  relief  in  the  premises  as  to  your  Excellency  may 
seem  fit  and  proper,  wnether  by  removal  of  the  incumbents  in  the  more  OBJECTIONABLE  CASES,  and  the  inter- 
'diction  of  the  future  repetition  of  the  JJINOR  OFFENCES,  or  otherwise  dispose  of  the  same  as  may  best  con 
duce  to  the  intrrpst  of  the  Metropolis,  secure  the  credibility  of  the  public  service,  and  preserve  the  affection 
of  th"  people  f»r  the  perpetuity  of  the  Federal  Government;  and  your  memorialists  will  ever  pray,"  &c. 

(tiigncd  by  twenty  or  thirty  citizens.) 

[D.]. 

[The  envelope  of  the  letter,  of  which  the  following  is  a  copy,  had  this  address:  '«  To  E. 
De  Krafft  and  others,  signers  of  a  memorial  of  sundry  citizens  of  Washington  to  the 
President  of  the  United  States."] 

"WASHINGTON,  May  29, 1833. 

"  GENTLEMEN  :  I  am  directed  by  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  state  to  you  the  determination  which 
he  had  taken  upon  your  memorial  and  the  paper  accompanying  it,  previously  to  the  application  for  their  with 
drawal,  made  yesterday  by  Dr.  Mayo. 

"  Many  of  the  allegations  contained  in  the  paper  entitled  "  A  Sequel  to  the  Mem'ork.l,"  and  which  was  de 
livered  with  the  memorial  to  the  President,  are  not  such  as  would  warrant  the  removal  of  the  individuals  ac 
cused,  even  if  they  should  prove  to  be  well  founded.  The  President,  moreover,  has  been  informed,  in  wri 
ling,  by  several  of  those  whose  names  are  subscribed  to  the  memorial,  that  they  had  nevereeen  the  "  Sequel;" 


20 

tkat  they  had  no  knowledge  of  the  accusationo  therein  contained  ;  and  that  they  desire  to  disclaim  all  C0i» 
nexion  whatever  with  it. 

"Under  these  circumstances,  the  President  does  not  deem  these  papers  of  such  a  nature  as  at  present  t& 
require  or  authorize  his  particular  interference.  The  character  of  the  President,  however,  is  a  sufficient, 
guaranty  that,  whenever  specific  charges  of  incompetence  or  official  misconduct  shall  he  made  by  your- 
s«lves,  or  responsible  individuals,  against  any  person  in  office,  he  will  promptly  direct  such  an  investigation 
as  the  good  of  the  service  and  justice  to  all  parties  shall  require. 

"  Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

"  A.  J.  DONELSON. 

"  To  E.  DE  KRAFFT  and;  others,  memorialists," 

After  all  that  had  transpired,  of  high  advisement  and  approved  preparation,  I  will  leave 
She  reader  to  judge  with  what  profound  astonishment  I  received  a  message  from  Mr.  Ed 
ward  De  KrafFt,  requesting  me  to  peruse  so  evasive  a  letter!  True,  I  had  learned  that  there 
would  he  no  action  upon  the  matters  stated  in  the  sequel  to  the  memorial,  and  for  that  rea 
son  had  requested  leave  to  withdraw  them,  in  order  to  use  them  in  obedience  to  any  omer- 
gsncy ;  but,  as  luck  would  have  it,  they  were  refused,  and  I  have  had  the  ineffable  satis 
faction  to  find,  in  justification  of  those  statements,  that  all  the  reform  which  has  taken  place 
since  has  fallen  upon  General  Jackson's  own  delinquents,  then  and  afterwards  called  to 
kis  notice,  in  the  General  Post  Office,  the  Land  Office,  the  Patent  Office,  &c.  &c. 

The  movement  taken  by  several  signers  of  the  memorial,  in  disclaiming  all  connex 
ion  with  it,  on  account  of  the  charges  preferred  in  the  sequel  to  it,  ought,  perhaps,  to  be 
•xplained  here,  lest  it  should  be  considered  as  prim  a  facie  condemnation  of  the  document, 
which  the  explanation  will  show  was  not  the  fact.  Let  it  first  be  observed  that  many  of 
the  signers  of  the  memorial  adhered  to  the  prayer  of  the  memorial  that  an  investigation 
should  be  had ;  and  that  therefore  the  withdrawal  of  others  should  not  properly  have  fore 
stalled  inquiry  from  the  President,  under  whose  encouraging  countenance  and  approbation 
the  document  had  been  made  out  and  presented.  Next,  let  it  be  considered  that  several 
of  the  signers  of  the  memorial  who  seceded  from  it,  had,  themselves,  preferred  many  of  the 
charges  embraced  in  the  sequel ;  but,  upon  learning  that  some  of  their  own  personal  friends 
were  also  indicted  by  others,  they,  in  order  to  save  those  friends  from  inquiry,  took  measures 
to  nullify  the  document.  Such,  I  personally  know,  was  the  cause  of  Mr.  DeKrafft's  with 
drawal.  He  was  the  first  signer  of  the  memorial ;  he  made  many  of  the  charges  embraced 
in  the  sequel ;  and  he  was  the  first  t6  withdraw  to  save  his  friend.  It  was  a  very  easy  mat 
ter  to  get  others  to  follow  that  example ;  and  I  was  afterwards  emphatically  told  by  one  of 
the  indicted  that  the  failure  of  investigation  was  occasioned  by  the  great  number  included 
in  the  bill,  combining  to  defeat  it — the  memorialists  being,  all  of  them,  political  friends  of 
the  Administration,  as  well  as  I  recollect;  and,  there  being  very  many  friends  of  the  Ad 
ministration  included  in  the  bill,  it  was  easy  to  effect  such  a  compromise  as  would  exoner 
ate  all  from  the  scrutiny  of  a  time-serving  Administration.  Nor  need  any  one  marvel  at 
such  a  result  who  is  at  all  conversant  with  that  animal  instinct  by  which  the  lion,  the  fox,, 
and  the  jackal  coalesce  against  the  community  of  the  forest ;  of  which,  it  appears,  we  have 
had  a  recent  illustration  in  another  sphere  of  the  animal  creation  ! 

ANOTHER  JACKSON  AFFIDAVIT — EXECUTIVE  CHICANERY — A  NEW  COALITION — 
THREATENED  DEVOLUTION. 

It  is  a  sufficiently  remarkable  fact  to  claim  a  passing  notice  here,  that,  at  the  very  mo 
ment  I  am  concluding  this  exposition  of  the  foregoing  scandalous  affidavit,  in  which  Gen 
eral  Jacksen  assumes  to  be  so  wonderfully  minute  in  his  recollection  of  comparatively 
trivial  incidents  which  he  alleges  to  have  taken  place  in  1833,  Samuel  L.  Gouverneur, 
Esq.,  late  postmaster  of  New  York,  is  actually  exposing,  by  a  series  of  numbers  in  the 
New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer,  the  falsehoods  of  another  affidavit  of  General  Jackson, 
given  in  the  suit  of  the  Post  Office  Department  against  Mr.  Gouverneur — in  which  suit 
Mr.  Gouverneur,  as  I  understand,  claimed  offsets  to  a  large  amount,  for  loans  or  advances 
to  the  Post  Office  Department  while  it  was  under  the  management  of  William  T.  Barry, 
Esq.,  and  proves  by  living  witnesses  and  documentary  evidence  that  those  loans  were  made 
with  the  approbation  and  grateful  acknowledgments  of  the  late  President  himself  5  of  which, 
nevertheless,  in  his  said  affidavit,  he  utterly  denies  having  any  recollection,  and  attempts 
to  disprove  the  facts  by  a  series  of  other  alleged  recollections,  which  he  states  with  the 
same  unscrupulous  air  of  confidence  and  boldness  as  he  does  the  matters  he  sets  forth  in 
the  foregoing  affidavit.  I  have  seen  two  only  of  five  numbers  of  Mr.  Gouverneur's  re 
view  of  the  affidavit  h:  his  case.  If  General  Jackson  did  consult  Mr.  Taney,  as  he  says  he 
did,  it  only  proves  that  he  could  take  counsel  of  a  saint,  for  form's  sake,  while  ke  follows  the 


21 

m&tigation  of  the  Fiend  of  Darkne&s.  All  must  award  him  skill,  however,  in  providing 
confidants  on  the  one  hand,  and  dupes  on  the  other,  as  safety-valves  to  guard  the  duplicity 
of  his  acts  from  detection  ;  but  by  a  providential  deficiency  in  some  of  those  very  guards, 
fo  use  a  modern  technicality,  he  has  burst  his  boiler  after  all.  f  take  the  following  extract 
from  the  fourth  number  of  Mr.  G.,  in  the  Courier  of  the  24th  December  ultimo: 

"  To  the  third  question  the  then  President  replies :  '  He  has  no  personal  knowledge  of  any  loans  made  by 
the  Postmaster  General  on  his  authority.  He  heard,  in  Boston,  that  loans  from  banks  had  been  made  by  that 
officer  or  his  agents  to  sustain  the  Department;  but  no  such  loans  were  ever  authorized  by  this  deponent 


On  the  contrary,  he  always  told  the  Postmaster  General  he  had  no  authority  to  borrow  money  on  the  faith  nf 
"  t,  whatever  he  might  do  in  his  individual  capacity ;  nor  did  he  ever  directly  or  indirectly  as- 

-   usibi'" 
,o  th 
e  pov 
Post  Office  Department,  was,  that  he  could  not  commit  the  Government  in  a  loan  of  money ;  that  there  was 


the  Government,  ... 

sertthe  right  of  the  Postmaster  General  to  borrow  money,  except  on  his  own  responsibility ;  and  such  was  the 
opinion  of  the  Secretary,  Mr.  Taney,  communicated  by  him,  in  my  presence,  to  the  Postmaster  General, 
To  be  more  explicit  on  this  point,  the  view  entertained  by  this  deponent,  of  the  power  of  the  head  of  the 


no  Jaw  to  authorize  it ;  that  he  must  carry  on  the  Department  on  its  own  legal  means,  by  its  proper  credit 
alone,  and  his  own  responsibility.' " 

In  refutation  of  this  statement  of  General  Jackson,  in  answer  to  the  third  question  in  be 
half  of  the  Post  Office  Department,  Mr.  Gouverneur  shows  that  James  A.  Hamilton,  Esq., 
of  New  York,  made  "a  liberal  offer  to  Mr.  Barry  to  lend  the  Department  money;"  which 
oiler  "was  enclosed  open  to  the  then  President  himself;"  and  that  "Mr.  Barry's  reply  to 
Hamilton,  received  directly  from  the  President,  was  produced  in  court."  Mr.  Gouverneur 
also  says,  "an  original  letter  of  William  T.  Barry,  dated  the  8th  March,  1834,  is  now 
before  me" — from  which  he  quotes  these  words :  "  Congress  will  sustain  the  President  in 
his  course.  We  shall  have  to  rely  on  the  aid  of  State  banks,  and  the  President  assures  rnr 
that  the  Seventh  Ward  Bank  shall  be  remembered."  [This  was  shortly  after  and  during 
the  removal  of  the  deposites.]  Remembered  "for  what !"  says  Mr.  Gouverneur.  "At  two 
moments  of  the  greatest  pressure  they  had  lent  the  Post  Office  Department  about  §60,000-" 
Mr.  Gouverneur  continues:  "Another  original  letter  from  William  T.  Barry,  of  the  12th 
April,  1834,  is  now  before  me.  He  says,  'The  matter  between  myself  and  Hamilton  if. 
confidential.  T  have  conversed  with  the  President.  He  knows  all  about  it,  and  says  it  is 
right.''  The  letter  proceeds  to  say,  'He  (the  then  President}  says  it  is  my  privilege  to 
borrow  of  whoever  will  lend,  and  obtain  all  the  aid  I  can  in  passing  through  my  difficul 
ties.  "  I  shall  make  no  further  extracts  on  this  affidavit  of  the  MATT-OF-AFFIDAVITB  !  ) 
presume  these  are  sufficient  to  give  the  reader  some  idea  of  the  sort  of  man  I  have  had  to 
deal  with,  in  executing  commissions  to  assist  in  compiling  information  for  Executive  action, 
as  1  understood  it,  in  redeeming  a  public  pledge  of  salutary  reform.  What  I  did  was  in 
good  faith,  with  the  expectation  of  a  general  investigation  of  the  actual  condition  of  the, 
public  service  in  the  several  Departments,  and  that  it  would  result  in  the  establishment  of 
uniform  rules  of  administration  in  each,  with  a  strict  accountability  and  fidelity  to  the  pub 
lic  service.  But  General  Jackson's  treachery  towards  me  in  that  case,  as  may  be  seen  in 
the  above  letter  to  De  Krafft,  (leaving  me  in  the  false  position  of  a  volunteer  of  proscrip 
tion,  which  he  in  fact  set  on  foot,  and  which  I  in  fact  arrested,  by  including  his  own  favor 
ites  as  well  as  the  intended  victims  of  proscription,)  was  but.  the  beginning  of  the  numer 
ous  other  instances  yet  to  be  recited  in  my  forthcoming  book. 

Executive  chicanery  is  at  all  times  a  difficult  skein  to  unravel.  And,  besides  the  elu 
4\e  mercurial  properties  of  the  subject  itself,  there  are  great  impediments  thrown  in  the 
way  of  such  investigations  in  this  country,  from  the  unsuspecting  confidence  naturally  be 
stowed  by  a  liberal-minded  people  on  their  chosen  agents,  presumed  to  be  fully  worthy  of 
their  trust;  so  that,  under  any  circumstances,  much  mischief  might  be  done  by  ambitious, 
recreant  ingrates,  in  the  way  of  Executive  abuses  and  usurpation,  before  suspicion  could 
be  awakened,  or  ejection  from  office  arrest  its  progress.  And  yet,  viewed  in  a  party  light, 
the  evil  is  still  greater,  as  it  has  become  almost  the  universal  practice  of  those  who  have 
contributed  their  votes  and  their  personal  influence  to  elect  a  Chief  Magistrate,  to  granf. 
him  a  carte  blanche  for  whatever  he  may  think  proper  to  do,  and  to  cast  odium  and  re 
proach  upon  the  motives  of  those  who  would  dare  to  scrutinise  the  propriety  of  Executive  con 
duct  ;  whereas  it  would  be  a  much  safer  rule  for  all  patriotic  citizens,  after  exerting  their  bc.sf 
efforts  to  confer  high  trusts  even  upon  the  most  eminent  men  of  their  own  party,  to  keep  a 
vigilant  watch  upon  them,  and  hold  them  to  as  strict  accountability  an  if  they  had  hi  CM 
among  the  most  active  opposers  of  their  selection.  In  the  course  of  the  late  administration, 
and  so  far  as  the  present  has  progressed,  (which  i*  properly  but  a  continuance  of  the  pre 
ceding,)  this  unqualified  sanction  of  their  acts  by  their  party  adherents  has  been  extended 
not  only  to  the  hearty  support  of  wild  innovations  and  lawless  experiments,  never  thought 
of  before  they  were  installed— not  only  to  the  justification  of  practices  that  had  been  dis  - 


22 

claimed  and  denounced  by  them  in  order  to  insure  their  election— but  they  have  been  ad 
hered  to,  and  their  friends  conjured  to  sink  or  swim  with  them,  notwithstanding  the  mul 
tiplied  infractions  of  the  constitution  and  law,  and  a  contemptuous  defiance  of  the  legis 
lative  and  judicial  authorities,  until  at  length  we  see  that  engulphing  Tiers  Etal  (reversing 
the  order  of  the  French  revolution)  virtually  realized  by  the  consolidation  of  the  State  and 
Federal  Governments  into  an  EXECUTIVE  ABSOLUTE,  so  long  predicted  !  Of  this  fact,  the 
recent  demonstrations  of  Executive  influence  in  all  the  State  elections,  reducing  them,  as 
it  were,  to  a  provincial  subserviency  to  the  will  of  a  despot,  is  one  evidence" ;  it  is  also  de 
monstrated  by  the  Executive  influence  more  recently  exerted  over  the  organization  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  New  Jersey  cjelegation — virtually  nulli 
fying  a  sovereign  State,  by  means  of  a  corrupt  coalition  (as  goes  the  rumor  reversing  the 
direction  of  the  thunder  of  nullification)  with  the  boasted  champion  of  the  State-rights  party, 
entered  into,  doubtless,  for  their  reciprocal  benefit,  at  the  dear  cost  of  their  country — that  is, 
in  order  to  insure  an  executive  party  character  to  the  officers  and  the  committees  of  the 
House,  to  ward  olf  investigations  of  Executive  abuses  and  corruption,  to  secure  the  re-elec 
tion  of  the  present  incumbent,  on  the  one  part,  and  to  enable  him  to  indemnify  his  wronged 
antagonist  on  a  former  occasion,  on  the  other  part,  by  bestowing  on  him  the  reversion  of 
the  presidency  hereafter,  as  General  Jackson  had  done  to  him  of  the  first  part,  when,  by 
their  united  artifices,  they  succeeded  in  supplanting  their  present  hireling  and  coadjutor, 
of  the.  second  part.  *  Again  :  the  fact  of  virtual  consolidation  is  demonstrated  in  the  denun 
ciations  of  the  recent  Executive  message  against  yet  other  reserved  rights  of  the  States,  in 
relation  to  their  corporate  institutions,  whose  constitutionality  and  stability  are  assailed  in 
still  more  systematic  terms,  in  a  fourth  attempt  to  dictate  to  Congress  the  establishment 
•of  an  unconstitutional  mammoth  federal  institution  as  the  inevitable  foundation  of  an  over- 
towering  national  bank,  that  will  awallow  up  all  the  State  institutions ;  and,  to  cap  the  cli 
max  of  Executive  arrogance,  he  urges  this  latter  measure  with  redoubled  audacity,  by  ad 
dressing  himself  to  the  fears  of  the  Representatives  of  the  people,  holding  up  to  their 
imaginations  the  terrors  of  an  awful  alternative,  bloody  revolution,  if  a  peaceful  revolu  - 
fion  cannot  be  wrung  front  their  quailing  hearts?.  For  REVOLUTION  is  his  aim,  as  he  so 
Denominates  the  reform  he,  for  the  fourth  time,  urges  upon  Congress,  to  be  effected  by 
ihe  establishment  of  a  paramount  independent  treasury,  (miscalled,  by  design,  a  sub- 
treasury,)  but  truly  a  mammoth  bank  in  disguise,  which  he  connects  with,  and  makes 
an  indispensible  reciprocating  agent  in,  the  destruction  of  all  Stale  corporations  whatever. 
In  fine,  it  i,s  still  more  clearly  and  unequivocally  demonstrated,  when  we  see,  in  the  last 
paragraph  but  one  of  his  message,  that  he  endorses  the  very  counterpart  expression  of 


*  Since  the  above  was  written,  this  coalition  has  been  in  substance  formally  acknowledged  on  the  floor  of 
the  Senate  by  owe  of  the  high  contracting  parties,  accompanied,  however,  with  efforts  at  explanation,  which 

- 


ggravate  thaa  extenuate  the  offence,  for  obvious  reasons.  The  s-inie  is  also  confirmed  in  more  ex 
jplicit  form,  and  bearing  evidence  of  official  misdemeanor,  in  one  of  Mr.  Calhomrs  recent  letters  to  his  for- 
uvr  friend,  General  Green,  on  the  latter  gentleman  becoming  a  candidate  for  the  office  of  printer  to  the 
House  of  Representatives  of  the  present  Congress.  Upon  that  occasion,  Mr.  Calhoun,  though  a  member  of  a 
co-ordinate  and  counterpoising  branch  of  the  Legislature;  and  therefore  having  no  right,  consistently  with 
of  honor  antl  delicacy,  to  interfere  with  the  election  of  officers  in  the  vital  organization  of  the  House  of 
s,  held  the  following  extraordinary  language  : 


*•  I  came  to  the  city  under  the  impression  that  our  principles  *.n&  policy  on  which  we  acted  would  compel 
"J3  [meaning  himself  of  the  Senate  and  his  party  adherents  in  the  other  House]  to  act  icith  the  administra 
tion,  IF  they  would  adh  re  to  the  course  which  they  had  taken;  and  that  our  proper  course  would  be,  to  L£T 
them  [meaning  the  administration]  elect  their  own  officers,  [that  is,  assist  them  in  it,]  including  the  printer 
lo  the  House,  thieanirig  the  editorial  organs  of  the  administration,  who  had  already  been  elected  by  '  the  ad 
ministration,'  as  Mr.  Calhoun  would  express  it,  as  printers  to  the  Senate,]  in  order  that  we  might,  with 
yreatcr  propriety  and  effect,  [according  to  bargain  and  compromise,  implied  or  expressed,]  INSIST  on  that 
course  of  measures  which  we  believe  to'be  essential  to  the  INTERESTS  OF  THE  COUNTRY  !  !'; 

Here,  then,  the  bargain  by  which  the  vital  organization  of  the  House  of  Representatives  is  bartered  away 
*/)  %<the  administration"  by  an  aspiring  member  of  the  Senate,  is  distinctly  admitted  and  unblushing!? 
avowed  ;  or  where  could  be  the  necessity  "  to  takp  such  a  course  of  policy"  under  the  pretence  of  insisting 
">n  the  administration  (for  the  interests  of  the  country  !)  doing  what  they  had  already  assumed,  and  pledged 
their  best  exertions  to  do,  without  Mr.  Calhoun's  aid  '}  If  he  meant  to  aid  them  in  the  Senate,  which  it  war. 
his  privilege  to  do,  he  should  have  been  content  to  do  that,  without  interfering  vyith  the  independent  action 
of  the  co-ordinate  branch  of  the  Legislature,  which  virtually  paralyzes  the  constitutional  check  of  the  pop 
ular  representation  upon  the  Executive  and  the  Senate,  and  in  effect  tends  to  place  the  whole  legislative 
power  between  the  fingers  of  the  Executive. 

Is  it  not  thus  made  certain,  to  the  comprehension  of  all,  that  the  party  friends  of  Mr.  Calhoun  acted  di 
rectly  under  his  control,  for  the  indirect  benefit  of  the  Executive,  in  the  organization  of  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives  ;  and,  as  a  means  more  effectually  to  accomplish  his  views,  aided  in  excluding  the  New  Jersey 
delegation,  in  violation  of  the  laws  and  the  constitution,  as  well  as  an  infringement  of  the  prerogative  of  the 
Housed  Well  might  General  Green  say,  upon  this  occasion  "  that  Mr.  CALHOUN,  by  his  coalition  with  Mr. 
Van  Buren.  has  lost  his  moral  influence,  and,  in  hjs  opinion,  that  General  Harrison  must  be  elected." 


23 

Amos  Kendall,  denounced  in  his  Hickory  Club  address,  in  1832,*  against  all  corporations 
as  "a  young  nobility  system,"  against  which  General  Jackson  had  aimed  the  first 
blow  of  destruction— when  we  see  he  endorses  the  like,  but  perhaps  more  sweep 
ing  denunciation,  by  his  leader  in  the  Senate,  Mr.  Wright,  launched  forth  in  a  speech 
delivered  before  his  democratic  constituents  during  the  recess,  in  which  he  declared 
that  the  glorious  revolution  of.  our  patriotic  forefathers  was  not  yet  complete ;  that  we 
have  yet  "  to  rid  ourselves  of  the  ARISTOCRACY"  of  this  land  of  liberty !  -and  how  1  by  cut 
ting  off  the  head,  and  dividing  the  spoils,  of  her  principal  citizens,  where  it  was  supposed 
that  industry  was  patronised  and  property  protected !  I  grant  that  this  endorsement  is 
made  in  Mr*  Van  Buren's  accustomed  indirect,  parenthetical,  and  equivocal  manner ;  but 
it  is  not  the  less  ardently  meant,  and  for  which,  if  any  thing,  he  should  be  held  the  more 
responsible.  Grant,  I  say,  that  it  is  only  brought  in  by  a  side  wind,  after  a  long  tirade 
against  the  abuses  of  all  State  corporations,  which,  by  changing  a  single  term,  would  be  a 
better  description  of  the  Federal  Executive  abuses  that  gave  existence  to  that  immense  pro 
geny  of  corporations,  and  the  relaxed  morals  of  the  guardians  into  whose  hands  they  have 
been  intrusted.  Let  the  reader  peruse  and  ponder  upon  the  following  extract  with  which 
Mr.  Van  Buren  concludes  his  denunciation  of  all  corporations,  as  "a  system  of  exclusive 
privileges  conferred  by  partial  legislation,"  and  then  say,  if  he  dare,  that  the  President  of  the 
United  States  has  not  most  solemnly  invoked  the  demon  of  bloody  revolution  against  the 
institutions  of  the  sovereign  States  of  this  confederacy,  "whenever  it  becomes  necessary" 
to  accomplish  that  great  and  radical  revolution,  which  he  insists  must  be  done,  per  fas 
aut  nefas — peaceably  if  he  can,  forcibly  if  he  must. ! 

•"  To  remove  the  influences  which  had  thus  gradually  grown  up  among  us— to  deprive  them  of  their  decep 
tive  advantages— to  test  them  by  the  light  of  wisdom  and  truth— to  oppose  the  force  which  they  concentrate 
in  their  support,— all  this  was  necessarily  the  work  of  time,  even  among  a  people  so  enlightened  and  pure  as 
that  of  the  United  States.  In  most  other  countries,  perhaps,  it  could  only  be  accomplished  through  that  series 
of  revolutionary  movements,  which  are  too  often  found  necessary  to  effect  any  great  and  radical  reform  ;  but 
it  is  the  crownins  merit  of  our  institutions,  that  they  create  and  nourish,  in  the  vast  majority  of  our  people, 
a  disposition  and~a  power  peaceably  to  remedy  abuses  which  have  elsewhere  caused  the  effusion  of  rivers 
of  olood,  and  the  sacrifice  of  thousands  of  the  human  race.  The  result  thus  far  is  most  honorable  to  the  self- 
denial,  the  intelligence,  and  the  patriotism  of  ovr  citizens;  it  justifies  the  confident  hope  that  they  will  carry 
through  the  reform  which  has  been  so  well  begun,  and  that  they  will  go  still  farther  than  they  iiave  yet 
gone  "in  illustrating  the  important  truth,  that  a  people  as  free  and  enlightened  as  ours  will,  whenever  it  be 
comes  necessary,  show  themselves  to  be  indeed  capable  of  self-government,  by  voluntarily  adopting  appro 
priate  remedies  for  every  abuse,  and  submitting  to  temporary  sacrifices,  HOWEVER  GREAT,  to  insure  their 
permanent  welfare." 

The  progress  of  the  revolutionary  spirit  here  referred  to,  is  so  stealthily  commended  and 
urged  onward  to  bloodshed  and  civil  war,  that  it  may  require  a  somewhat  closer  inspec 
tion  than  a  cursory  perusal  to  appreciate  it  fully.  I  shall  therefore  write  out  the  last  sen 
tence,  and,  by  aid  of  that  powerful  interpreter,  IXXUEXDO,  interline,  in  brackets,  the  allu 
sions  with  which  it  is  pregnant,  and  quote  them  as  they  are  set  forth  in  the  preceding  pas 
sages,  and  elsewhere,  by  co-workers  in  the  same  scheme  of  revolution,  by  way  of  exhibit 
ing,  in  the  most  unequivocal  manner,  WHAT  the  President  WOULD  BE  AT. 

He  says  :  "The  result,  THUS  FAR,  [meaning  the  result  of  our  *  great  and  radical  re 
form,'  that  enterprise  of  a  faction  to  destroy  all  our  corporate  institutions,  State  and 
Federal,]  is  most  honorable  to  the  SET.T-DEXIAL,  the  intelligence,  and  the  patriotism  of 
our  citizens;  [meaning  the  ' self-denial'  of  (the  vast  majority  of  our  people,1  that  is, 
the  democracy  of  numbers,  in  abstaining  from  the  rare  and  exquisite,  luxury  indulged 
in  by  'most  other  countries,'  'in  the  effusion  of  rivers  of  blood,  and  the  sacrifice  of 


*  All  the  allusions  of  this  BUTTENDER  of  the  President's  message  were  most  graphically  prefigured  in  the 
address  of  Amos  Kendall  to  the  Hickory  Club  festival  of  the  5th  December,  1832."  These  were  his  fatal  words : 

"  The  United  Stales  have  their  young  nobility  system.  Its  head  is  the  Bank  of  the  United  States ;  its 
right  arm  a  protecting  tariff  and  manufacturing  monopolies ;  its  left,  groicing  State  debts  and  State  incor 
porations. 

"  The  VETO  of  our  illustrious  President,  so  triumphantly  sustained  by  the  people,  has  bruised  the  HEAD  of 
the  young  serpent.  Be  it  our  duty,  and  that  of  the  people,  TO  SEE  THAT  IT  NEVER  RECOVERS  FROM  THE 
BLOW  !"  [Accordingly,  in  less  than  twelve  months,  mis  soothsayer  removed  the  deposites,  and  administered 
the  surfeit  to  the  other  banks.] 

"  The  manufacturing  monopolies  are,  if  possible,  a  GREATER  CURSE  !  It  is  an  error  to  say  their  evils  fall 
exclusively  upon  the  South.  They  do  more  injury  to  the  people  of  the  States  where  they  are  located  THAN' 

TO  ANY  OTHERS,1'  &C.,  &C. 

it  would  now  be  superfluous  to  say  that  facts  upon  facts  are  strongly  developing  the  probability  that  we 
nave  had  a  MAELZEL  to  superintend  the  political  chess-board  of  twoTPresidents,  who,  as  successive  AUTOM 
ATONS  exposed  to  public  view,  have  made  the  moves  indicated/root  BEHIND  THE  CURTAIN  !  Thus  has  he, 
by  favor  of  his  ensconced  position,  been  the  great  manufacturer  of  public  opinion,  by  the  monopoly  of  which 
he  has  made  much,  and  may  yet  for  a  season  make  more  ;  but  will  the  American  people  long  submit  to  such 
a  humiliation  1 


24 


thousands  of  the  human  race,'  their  fellow-citizens,  in  effecting  '  radical  reform*' — *  in 
telligence  and  patriotism'  being  put  in  as  masks  to  'self-denial,-']  it  [meaning  l  the  result 
thus  far']  justifies  the  confident  hope  that  they  [the  democracy  of  numbers]  WILL  carry 
through  the  REFORM  which  has  been  so  WELL  BEGUN  ;  [meaning  the  destruction  of  a// 
ftaid  corp  trate  institutions  whatsoever,  '  so  well  begun'  by  the  destruction  of  the  United 
States  Bank,  'the  head  of  our  young  nobility  system,'  effected  by  the  joint  operation  of 
the  veto  of  the  bill  for  its  recharter,  and  the  removal  of  the  deposites,  producing  also  (he 
late  apoplectic,  and  present  collapsed  condition  of  the  Slate  banks,  by  the  surfeit  of  the 
deposites  transferred  to  them  for  that  purpose,-]  and  that  they  WILL  go  still  further  than 
they  have  YET  GONE  [with  these  'revolutionary  movements']  in  illustrating  the  important 
truth,  that  a  people  as  free  and  enlightened  as  ours  [meaning  the  'greatest  numbers/'*] 
WILL,  WHENEVER  IT  BECOMES  NECESSARY,  show  themselves  to  be  INDEED  capable  of 
SELF-GOVERNMENT  [in  executing  the  RULE  of  the  MOB,  in  defiance  of  law,  the  obligation 
of  contracts,  and  the  vested  rights  of  property,  upon  the  Jack  Cade  principle  of  '  living 
in  common']  by  voluntarily  [meaning  wilfully]  adopting  APPROPRIATE  REMEDIES  for 
every  abuse  [according  to  their  interpretation,  under  the  impulses  of  arbitrary  passion] 
and  submit  to  temporary  sacrifices,  HOWEVER  GREAT,  [even  unto  bloodshed  and  civil  war, 
progressing  '  through  that  series  of  revolutionary  movements  which  are  too  often  found 
necessary  in  most  other  countries,]  to  insure  THEIR  PERMANENT  WELFARE  !"  [In  which 
result,  of  course,  as  the  facts  have  "thus  far"  proved,  they  would  find  themselves  egre- 
giously  mistaken,  by  the  fruition  off  such  lawless  measures  of  warfare  upon  all  the  insti 
tutions  of  civilization.] 

Was  the  President  more  explicit  than  this,  when  he  claimed,  indirectly  and  parenthet 
ically,  to  be  a  constituent  part  of  the  legislative  power  1  That  he  did  so,  by  such  indirec 
tion,  all  must  agree,  was  to  let  it  pass  unobserved,  and  be  sanctioned  by  silence,  without 
raising  a  question  upon  it;  and  just  so  with  this  treasonable  invocation  of  the  spirit  of 

BLOODY   REVOLUTION  ! 

Oh!  VAN,  thou  caitiff/  Oh!  CATILINE,  thou  WORSE  than  caitiff!  Ah!  AMOS,  dost 
thou  "MOULD  and  TOUCH"  THEM1  TOO  ? 

-    R.  M. 
WASHINGTON  CITY,  D.  C.,  January  U,  1840. 


*  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  that  these  allusions  to  the  "  greatest  number,"  the  "  democracy  of  numbers," 
£c.,  are  not  by  any  means  meant  as  a  disrespect  to  the  sovereign  people  in  such  aggregate  capacity,  but 
merely  to  expose  to  THEIR  just  reproof  the  reiterated  and  hypocritical  appeals  made  to  them  by  this  fla 
gitious  dynasty,  in  order  to  cajole  and  flatter  them  into  a  support,  by  their  benign  countenance,  of  the  un 
hallowed  efforts  making  to  subvert  the  institutions  of  our  country,  which  have  been  established  by  those 
sages  and  patriotic  statesmen  who  flourished  in  the  better  days  of  the  Republic,  and  whom  it  has  heretofore 
been  the'  delight  of  the  Auierican^people,  not  by  distinctions  of  the  "greatest  number,"  the  "  democracy  of 
numbers,"  orliny  other  such  catch  denominations,  but  by  whole  communities,  to  honor,  revere,  and  hold  in 
grateful  remembrance,  without  invidious  party  distinctions,  for  the  mere  glorification  of  a  factious  party 
leader,  who,  without  popularity,  is  revelling  in  the  popularity  of  his  predecessor,  undeservedly  transferred  to 
his  use,  and  sedulously  devising  "  pop'lar  traps"  to  retain  its  use  AGAINST  THE  WILL  OF  THE  SOVEREIGN 

PEOPLE  HE  WOULD  NOW  BEGUILE  BY  CUNNING. 


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